Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1867-08-19
Marriage and Literature.

Ic Milton married three times and
ehakesneare once, the former enjoyed
lille coniugal felicity, and the latter
lived alone during his productive years
Racon and Goethe married Lutte IN lie.
Iafontoine married at twenty'six, but
aSandoned his wife early in the honey
moon. and never saw her again except
on business. Moliere suffered, says Voi-
taire in the marriage which ne contract
cd inf forty.one, twelve years before MS
death. "lcs degouts, les Gmertumes, Gu
a,,eJovefois les ridicules, qaH dpdtt So
so,,renf zones sur ie theatre. Beaumar
oha;s early in life, and before he wrote
tbe NAV upon which his reputation rests
ios, two wives, one of whom he was
calumniously reported to have poisoned
Addison. nj forty.four, three years before
b;s doath. married countess, who was
nn ho,,err saws Thackeray, than
sLraSy and vixen" Sterne. complains
,hst the presence of his wife stopped the
aow of his ideas, and finds inspiration
in the society of another man wiie;
leasing did his best work before be Tell
in love. or after his wife death, and was
in a state Of intellectual torpor during
The six wears engagement and his one
Coor's marriage. The insanity of Thack-
ersv's wife made him practically
w;dower during his last and great
oet 6ovs Plato warned By So
crates experience. Aristopbanes, Amaze
room. Lucretius, Virgil, Horace, Vol
taire' Rousseau, Swift, Pope, Goldsmith,
He;ne. Balzac, Beranger, Sainte- Beuve,
and in our own country, irving anu
Thoreau, never married. In the kindred
arts. the great names OF Beethoven ana
Michael Angelo, of whom their biogra-
nbers assert, not only that they never
married. but that they never loved In
cry lint a Platonic sense, are enough to
cite OF female writers, many OF the
,nost eminent, from Miss Austen, the
a~ceIlent teller of domestic tales, to Miss
Marlin Miss Cobbe, Miss Hewitt,
and Miss Bremen, never took hus-
bends while others, like Miss Bronte,
found that matrimony. put a
needle between their fingers instead OF
mem. Almost all the great writers OF the
middle ages were ecclesiastlcs, ana oil
nnurse ceIbates. And as marriage
among the Greeks was simply house;
Iaoy;ng convenience - the husband
snepdinq his days and evenings abroad,
While the wife sewed, cooked and paid the
hiIls-all the Athenian poets and phIlos-
onbers should be accounted bachelors
4 large proportion Of the writer's whose
works belong to the same general class
With those of Lamb, the writer's whose
nr;v;lece it has been to enliven, cheer
ard sweeten life, were either bachelors or
unfortunate husbands. Happy or not
themselves, they have caused happi.
ness TO others, have reached the secret
s r1-T of laughter and of tears, and BY
nose touches Of nature which make the
whole world kin, have awakened the
better selves of their readers, and com
rpanieated to them the love for their fell
low.beincs with which their own hearts
were filed. The writings of Goldsmith,
Irving aud Lamb abound in proofs that
70 love women it is not necessary to be
husband. that to love children it is not
necessary to be q father, and that we
NAV love our brethren of mankind
without being bribed thereto by Words,
wortb's " Dover of Clustering Charities.
North american Rerlep: