The St. Cloud journal. [volume] (St. Cloud, Minn.) 1866-1876, 1867-09-05
MARRIAGE AsD LITEnATuRE.

L If Milton married three times and
Shakespeare once, the former enjoyed
little conjugal felicity, and tho latte,
lived alone during his productive years
Bacon and Goethe married late in life
Lafontaine married at twent-six, bu,
abandoned his wife early in the honey
moon, and never saw her again excep,
on business. Moliera suffered, saw
Voltaire, in the marriage which be con
tracted at forty-one, twelve years be-
fore his death, "les degouts, les amer
TUNES, ct qselQuefoi. ze. rid;cuzes, qu'ii
auast 81 souv;ns jones sur 1e theatre. y
Beaumarch.is,. early in life, and year,
before be wrote the play upon which hit
reputation rests, lost two wives, one o.
whom he vas calumniously reported e
have poisoned. Addison, At forty-four
three years before his death, married g
countess, "vho vas no BETTER" says
Thaekeray, ethan = shrew and yixeu."
Sterne complains that the presence Of
his vito stopped the flow Of his ideas
aud finds inspiration in the society OF
another mans wife. Leasing did biz
best work before he fell in love, OF afte,
his vlfe's death, and was in a state Of
intellectual torpor during the six years
engagement and his one years mar.
risge:, The insanity Of Thackeray's
vlfe made him practically ,widower
during his last and greatest days.
Plato, warned by Socrates experience,
Aristophanes, Auacreon, Lucretius,
Virgil, Horace, Voltalre. Rousseau,
Swift, Pope, Goldsmith, Heine, Balzac,
Beanger, Sainte;Repve, and in our
own country, Irving and Thoreau, never
married. In the kindred arts, the great
names Of Beethoven and Michael
Angelo, of whom their biograpbers as
sert; not only that they never married,
bpt; that they never loved in any but 4
Pl>tonic sense, are enough to cite. OF
female writer's, many of the most emf
nent, from Miss Austen, the excellent
teller of domestic tales, to Miss Martin,
Miss Cobbe, Miss Hewitt, aud Miss
Bremen, never took husbands; while
others, like Miss Brorte, found that
matrimony put needle between their
fingers instead Of . pen. Almost oil
the great vritem of the Middle Ages
we're ecclesiastics, and of course, cell
bates. And - marriage among the
Greeks vas simply = housekeeping con-
venience, the husband spending his
day and evening abroad, while the wife
seved, cooked, and paid the bills, all
the Athenisn poets and philosophers
should be accounted bachelors. A large
portion of the writer's whose works
belong to the same general class With
those Of Lamb, the writer's whose privi-
lege it has been to enliven, cheer, and
sveeten life, we're either bachelors or
unfortunate husbands. Happy or not
themselves, they have been the cause
Of happiness to others, have reached
the secret springs of laughter and of
tears, and BY those touches Of nature
which make the whole world kin, have
awakened the better selves of their
readers, and communicated 10 them the
love for their-fellov-bsings With which
their own hearts we're filed. The
writings of Goldsmith, Irving, and
Lamb abound ia proofs that to love
women it is not necessary to be hus-
band. that to love children it is not
necessary to be father, and that We
may glove our brethren, Of mankind
without being bribed thereto by Words
xorth's "Dower Of. Clustering Chair
ties" -North Znae-;ea" REVIEW.