The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1874-08-25
NO.. 90
Genius and Matrimony.

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this is found in Popes expression that
"great wit is to madness near allied"
Lunatics are not adapted to domestic life,
and Shakespeare says that
The unntic, tho lover and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
1t must be some reason such as this
which leads the Tiltons and the Beechers
into matrimonial tribulations. Even
Milton found himself not exempt from
this penalty Of genius. Swift was mar
ried to a woman whom he disliked, and
whom he seldom met after the ceremony,
and that only in the presence ofa third
person. Lord Byron's family difficulties
are well known. He never cared any.
thing for the woman he married, and the
union was unsuitable on both sides. Be-
fore marriage he ridiculed her to her as.
sociatcs, and in after life he styled her
contemptuously his mathematical wife"
She had taste for this study, which was
enough to awaken the dislike of such
man. Shelley, whose free-love notions
Tilton has revived, ran away with his
iamia Mary Goodwin; and the wife
whom he abandoned committed suicide.
Tilton has no need to clope with any Of
his free.love associates, for unfortunately, |
every facility has long been before them.
Shelley took the partner of his guilt to
Italy but Brooklyn is as corrupt as Til.
tons immortality can require. This is too
old a story to require repetition. lfl
Shelley were living in the present day.he
would find in Brooklyn his most congen.
ial atmosphere.
MORE ABOUT POETS.
Coleridgc, Southcy and Wordsworth
married three sisters named Frickcr, who
were very intelligent and even gifted wo.
men, notwithstanding Byron called them
as term of contempt, 1.-THE three millin.
ers Of Bath Coleridgc, being besot-
ted opium eater, never provided .or his
family, and in his forty second year was
placed in the house of friend as an asy-
lum, where he remained until his death,a
period Ct eighteen years Southey and
Wordsworth were happy in their domes-
tic life. Walter Scott's wife was pret.
ty French woman, whose father came to
Scotland to escape the reign Of terror.
he was Intellectually inferior to the So
ciety in which her husbands station
placed her, but their domestic life was
one Of much harmony. Fielding was
very happy in his matrimonial record, and
named one of his novels Amelia, in honor
OF his wife They were tenderly attached
although she was not his peer in intellect.
Charles Churchill, the satirst, forsook
his wife for other female associations lie
died in his .hirty-iourth year, after
, rapid career in misery. Old Sam John.
sou, on the other hand had wife Of fee.
BILE intellect and much his senior in point
of age ; and yet he nurturcd her atfec.
; tionately till her death which he mourned
sincerely, and never married again.
, What an old tcgy, Til;on would say.
: Yes, but he was the happirst after all.
| MODERN AUTHORS.
! The famous novelist. Bulwcr not only
J quarrclcd with lis wife, but endcavored
. to have her Gagged in a private luuatic
, asylum. The learned Dr. Gardner elopod
1 with i0mia. who stole his affections
= from his wife and came with him to
! America Charles Dickens, as all have
t heard, separated from his wife ten years
= or more before death finally cut the un.
:. happy tie Charles Sumner was also sep.
n arated from his wife, aud the disunion
e was confirmed hy divorce. We thus
= see that genius seldom proves a success
i full preparation for married life down
e to the present experience in Brooklyn
VI which is peculiarly Illustrative on thi!
:, point
u THE SERVANT GIRLS REMARK
= = Robert Southey says; once me
II with book in which q servant girl ha'
% written on blank leaf. "Not much Tor
y after marriage, Int good deal before.
- Southey adds, this is too true" but b
:" also adds:
- ''The dream of lite can last with none Of us
=. As if the thing below were all a saint
,d And every place she enters were shrine
lie But it must be cur own fault il, whe
ID that dream has passed away, the realitie
er disappoint us Real life is not stale, ia
an and improbable unless VIC ourselves rer
~ der it SO. This is uttered by man who's
as wife was shattered invalid, but his houl
ns was never shattered By a lamia.
u" MARRIAGE WITHOUT DIVORCE.
While Rosseau. Shelley, Tilton an
: Victoria Woodruff advocated marriaf
80 tempered by iacie abbreviations, We ma
.s recall the simple and primitive Moravial
"a who formed their marriage by lot, al
an among whom divorce was never know
,r. This is very curious contrast, and pc
-, haps one reason was that in that antiq'
If simplicity the lamia never appeared.
Ia shall not discuss the Moravian syste
do here. and only suggest it as method
,at which an old dfashioned people avoid S
nj cial difficulty which is now imminent.
;m 'u' The LOVE STORY OF CATHARIYE SED
WICK, who wrote of such ideal passions
~ ~ her novels, 40 and 80 years ago, has be
~, o for the first time given to the world
~, a the columns of the Pittsfield Eagle. Nj
;on M Sedgwick was the flower of apeculial
~, ~ Intellectual family, many Of whose ME
sa lbers won distinguished names in yaric
ros neius, anu "iiopc i>eslic, WI" hs ~
, I, n1 cessors, have rendered hsr place in Am
w lean literature secure. Her home
, nd Stockbridge, her native place where
,oS I died not many years ago, was long a
0nt .o cial and intellectual center, and she v
n", 'u~ surrounded by most reverent iriendsl
'nsi ''sa and attention A siugularly even,pla
.noS "u life hers seemed and yet she had her
,no M nance Her brother Theodore, son
70 the eminent Judge Of the same name, '
u;s t a lawyer in Albany when the century
a;ds young, and his partner Harmann Blse
!, as er, naturally became acquainted with
>on ~ brilliant young writer,and an engagem
bo I;' followed. Mr.. Beecker was Of one
,s u,.n' - the old Dutch families of the Knicl
= h;s ~ booker city, man of wealth, culture,
us h;oh cho m otar hut of colder and lass