Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1879-08-20
GENIUS AND MORALITY.
BY HATTIE TYING GRISWOLD.
From the Sunday TELEGRAPH,

i udNG IGC6IlUlY DG6ll IodIlllg TWO DOOkS
not new, yet worth the reading. The re-
cord of two lives, one that of a woman,
the other that of a man.
Mrs Gasl1ell's life of Charlotte Bronte,
and Senior Casteilar's life of Byron. Chill
dren of genius both of them, brilliant, un-
usual, ,comet-like, coming across the litera-
ry heavens, with one long trail and blaze
of splendor, and passing almost as soon
away, as that brilliant meteor of the
heavens.
Both died at about the same age, too,
young, with half the promise of their
years unfulfilled: and having led lives
that were little joyful or joy giving, but
rather black with an accumulated night
of woe. Tragic, fatal, calling for world
of tears, both-but oh! with what a diff
ference in them. She, pure as a monu-
ment Of crystal snow, he dark and spot
ted, and defiled.
And the thought which has come to me
in comparing the two lives in this: Ifas
Senior CASTELAR, affirms of Byron, call
grand qualities are necessarily accompan-
led by grand defects-all extraordinary
virtue, all surprising merit, is born of a
the perfection of the Imagination is the
imperfection of conscience or to put it
in its true and literal meaning-genius is
necessarily accompanied by laxity of
moral faculties, wish to inquire why
this does not apply to women, as we'll as
men? There is no sex in genius, and if
it is 50 difficult, 50 impossible for great
men to be pure and noble, why is it not
equally so for great women.
In sober truth, | am tired OF the ex-
cuses for the lives of such men as Byron
and Goethe, Voltaire and Burns.
My admiration of their genius is second
to that of none | have thrilled, and
thrill to day, with the passion and the
pain of Byron's proud and fatal beauty.
[ am willing to admit that the most of his
poetry is pure, as we'll as facinating.
Not for words would | blot out those i'm
mortal poems, which will 90 on, thrilling
the eyes, down all the ringing grooves of
time. [ love the purer strains of Burns,
as well as the greatest penegyrist he has
found-tender, human, eleyating, inspir-
ing-this | gladly own. And the genius
of Goethe is one with the genius of the
others-grand, striking, original, COM
plete-a frlll-orbed genius; one of the
greatest works Of the Almighty's hand
So, too, of Voltaire; let us appreciate his
labors for free thought, his blows at
tyranny, his darling, and the wealth O. his
power. [ would be the last to say nay
to any one of them. But here let us stop.
Let us separate the writer from the man
and not become the apologist Of their
vices. Let us not as Lewes seems % do
for Goethe, and as CASTELAR, does for By
ron, as Victor Hugo does for Voltaire,
and thousand penegyrists are to-day
doing for Burns, make their genius an
excuse for their ignoble lives. | am will
ing to admit to the judgment all the ex-
tenuating circumstances of their lives,
and their temptations. | will admit By
ron's murderous ancestors, his unnatural
mother the wild blood that was in him.
and all the unfortunate circumstances of
his life, but not one of them is the excuse
which his biographer would have us be-
heve, for his utterly shameless and de-
graded life
But in the same breath in which he re-
counts his ignoble adventures, and few of
his enemies give you on the whole 50 bad
an impression of him as this fattering
foreigner; CASTELAR, wishes to redeem
him, and sees no other way to do it, but
by love, AS if such man, given over
to these vile courses could love, or could
be saved by the love Of any pure woman
in the world. 1t is about time, [ think,
that this particular way of reforming the
rakes of the world, should be given over
to the devil, with whom it must have
originated. High-minded and pious
mothers Of dissolute sons, are to-day all
over the land plotting and planning Just
this way of redeeming them from the
consequences of their shameful courses;
but | have never yet heard it proposed to
make the rule work both ways, and to
reform the dissolute women in the same
way.
And if genius is so unbalanced, so
weak in the moral senses as to the almost
excusable for evil courses, how does it
come that a woman like Charlotte Bronte
and like her Wierd sisters Acton and Ellis
Bell, who certainly had wild and hot
blood in their veins, if we may believe
the story Of the old minister's pistol firing
and other eccentricities, and as we see it
developed in their brother Bronwell; how
is it that they, full Of passionate young
life, and with imaginations like a con-
suming fre,-ferce, vivil, intense, put
all of their fire and tumult into their books
and lead lives of spotless purity? IF there
was excuse for. Burns in the poverty of
his life, his uncongenial surroundings,
his general and social nature, all these
excuses might have applied to the Bronte
sisters, living their lonely and forbidding
lives, among the Yorkshire moors.
l tell you nay. Their individual sins
are upon their individual souls, and,
though it is not becoming in us to blazon
them abroad, or to deal uncharitably with
them, it is not becoming for any man in
this age of enlightenment to seek to
make excuse for their misdeeds, on the
score of their genius, and because they
have neither the poetry Of the gods, glori-
fly them for having lived the lives of the
brutes.