The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1874-07-02
A PRoVERB REVIEWED.


Charles Lamb once amused himself by
writing series of sunny essays to show that
many popular proverbs, passing current,
ana used often as unans werable arguments
In favor of a certain course OF action, are, as
a TACT, fallacious and untrue and certain it is
that many of these accepted maxlms will
not bear very close analysis.
Is it true, for Instance, that "whom the
gods love die young ?" This is very con-
soilng proverb for the young mother who has
lost child "too beautiful TO live;' to the
/ iather who sees his bright and promising son,
VINO has borne away college prizes and en-
tered upon what seemed about to become
| a brilliant career, fade away under the dread
wasting of consum ption But the proverb
is often applied to persons of genius and
the rhetorical writer or orator, uttering
panegylic upon dead youthful talent, seems
often to prove, by lis mere statement, that
mental superiority has really brought about,
too early, physical dissolution. Dumas the
younger, speaking lately over the grave OF
| the young and gifted actress Mdl'e. Des.
clee, reasserted the idea In mis- eloquent way.
But is it justified by fact?
We would not be Gradgrindian when,
however, miscontepton is likely to arise,
and singular doctrine of the relations be-
tween The mind and the physical system is
involved, it is at least interesting TO dwell on
its probable truth or falsity. NJ Dumas
may. indeed, cite many instances In which
young men and women OF undoubted genius
have died young but cannot many more
instances of genius living 20 green old
age be found Shelley died young but
then he was drowned-his mind did net har-
row up his nerves and exhaust the physica,
vitality. Chatterton died young but he
poisoned himself. Byron's early death is
easily accounted for by the self~inficted pois
on ofeternal gin and water in the middle
of the night and by exLesses of dissipation
so inveterate that it is wonder he did not
kill himself in the twenties instead of the
thirties. Youths of genius were beheaded
>
exhaustion OF the vital tissues by an insatia-
BILE brain.
The record on the other hand, is a very
full one. Homer lived to old age, and was
old when he hawked the hexa metres of the
Had" through the Oriental cities. Dante
reached the reasonably mature age Of fifty
six. Virgil lived to nearly fifty. Milton
died at sxty-six, and Shakespeare at fifty
two. Still more striking instances OF genius
reaching venerable years appear in Voltaire,
who was eighty.four Humboldt, who was
ninety Chaucer, who was seventy-two
Dryden, who was seventy; Sam Johnson,
who was seventy-fve. Political genuses
have not. as rule, been less long-lived.
There were Lyndhurst and Brougham, the
rival champions of Wings and Tories, one Of
whom exceeded ninety. and the other came
within couple OF years of 1t. Our own
greatest trio OF statesmen-W Webster, Clay
and Calhoun-all nearly attained to the
allotted three score ears~and- ten Calhoun
the youngest, dying at sixty-eight, Webster
dying at seventy and Clay at seventy -fve.
The great painters who died at full age are
quite as numerous, the greatest of al. RAJ
phael, being the most striking exception
Titan lived to the arch patriarchal years of
ninety-nine; Michael Angelo arrived at nine
ty Leonardo de Vinci passed seventy and
Tintoretto died at the age of eighty-two.
In our own day, the MAXIM "whom the
gods love die young" is contradicted by
number of remarkable Instances. Victor
Hugo is as hale and rosy at seventy,two as
If he had not been engaged IN the throes Of
the most exhausting mental labor for forty
years; Theirs and Guizot, the ole seventy
six and the other eighty six, are still "men
of the time'' in very literal and active sense;
while the English premier and his rival,
Gladstone, have both passed their sixty fifth
year. The fact Is, that early death is mainly
matter OF physical endowment rarely is
it that remorselessly active mind frets the
body into the grave. The mental action
which affects health iniuriously. being CONS
mon to small as we'll as large brains. has
apparently no relation to the degree of INTEL
lectual foree.-AppzetoHs' Journal.