Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1892-03-11
THE WIVES OF AUTHORS.
LITERARY MEN VERY MUCH
LIKE OTHER MEN.
Sometimes Marry Pretty slmpletcns.
Sometimes Pose as Martyrs, and
Once In Awhile Contract
An Ideal Marriage.

moH VI SeuluS dre pOpuldrly sup
posed to adore pretty little brainless
simpletons. Fiction is apt to repre-
sent them as needing in wife sort
OF mental pillow-a restfully vacuous
mind which will not weary their own
great brains by demands on their
thinking forces.
mat Is the reason usually given
when a man OF marked mental power
allies himself to fool, as he some
times does. The world regards these
occasions with great satisfaction. saws
the Saturday Evening Post for in it's
heart OF hearts it esteems genius a
kind of lunacy on which public
opinion has set premium, and finds
it proper that it should wed imbecility.
When Bulwer's love letters were
given to an amazed reading public.
and it perused with unquenchable
laughter dozens of letters in which
that great novelist addressed the OBJ
ject Of his affection as '.Itty doggy"
and subscribed himself-to the ex-
IRENE satisfaction of the reader-as
Puppy" our reverence for the man
trembled on its foundations, and he
seemed scarcely more hero to us
than he possibly did to his valet
Keats letters to his sweetheart
Fanny Browne, while they rise at
times to mournful power, at other
times are as commonplace as the billet
doux of any schoolboy. while Fanny
Browne herself did not seem to APP
preciate the distinction of being the
lover OF poet We are told she was
dark, sensuous and leopard like"
Perhaps. the only pure and sincere
passion that ever graced the stormy
life of Byron was his boy-love for the
I beautiful Mary Chatworth. and there
was said to be an element of dignity
about it that checked the onlooker's
inclination to treat it with the light
ness usually accorded to the fancies of
youth.
The literary man with an invalid
wife is n well-known social type. 1t
is he who is ministered with the hot
test cups of tea and the coolest seats
at afternoons by the gushing and
sympathetic young girl. And there
are so many of them! The men referred
to are often tenderly spoken of as
'hampered" by the demands on their
time from the valetudinarian.
Some of them cannot write in the
room with her; some cannot write in
the house with her. She so affects
those supersensitive literary nerves.
She becomes more and more a myth
to society at large She is still ami
ably inquired after by his hostess who
watches with overlooking admiration
what we once heard q lady character
ize las the sweet patience of that
brave souls SMILE" and as rule,
the brave soul goes to receptions and
accepts feminine homage and pity
with all the valor imaginable, and his
glory is greatly enhanced by his sup.
posed sufferings
The old proverb that two of o.
trade can never agree has been very
successfully set at naught by the lives
of the Brownings and many others
No woman ever had more magnif-
cent lines written to her than Robert
Browning addressed to his wife in
Zone Word More" and those who
were privileged to know them init
mately speak Of theirs as the abso-
lutely perfect ideal welded life. for
they were each an inspiration to the
other.
Who can ever forget the poignant
agony of David Copperield. allied to
the foolish little Dora, who. for all
her natural sweetness of temper, was
about as fit to be the wife of such
man as butterfly would be- and VINO,
too, can ever forget the scene in which
for the first time he realizes with ter
rible clearness that there can be no
greater banS to conjugal happiness
than with uncongeniality of thought
and purposeP
And the Doras in real life do not all
die so OPPORTUNITY as did the sweet
simpleton of the story. and with each
passing day the literary artist spends
with such a woman the breach widens.
They are one flesh, but not one soul:
he finds that remorseful tenderness is
all he can bestow; and torn by the
conflict and worn with mental suffer-
ing and lack OF broad and sympathetic
comprehension, his work sufTers-he
grows morbid and interpretive.
We have heard of one hapless man
OF letters married to woman of ma
terialistic temperament and when
ever he was depressed and smarGing
under an adverse press review or re-
jected manuscript, this excellent lady
would plead with him to take Peru
Wan barkl A tonic was what he
needed, she averred. Heaven help the
man of imagination welded to woman
like this