Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-05-01
MARRYING A GENIUS.
Bessie Bramble Agrees With Andrew
Lang That It's DANGEROUS
MOST FAMOUS MEN ARE INSANE.
The Women Who Are Chained Up to Them
See Their Seamy Side.
INSTANCES FURNISHED BY HISTORY
MOST FAMOUS MEN ARE INSANE.
INSTANCES FURNISHED BY HIST0R1
WRITTEN roR THE pIsPArCH.I

WRITTEN FoR THE DIsPArcH.i
Mr.. Andrew Lang, the English essayist,
strongly advises young women not to marry
literary men. If the majority of girls were
ever disposed to accept good advice in the
matter OF marriage it is likely they would
take thought of the general belief that
there is something akin in what the world
calls genius and insanity. But no people
receive more of admiration and indulgence
genius. Their eccentricities are overlooked
and excused on the score of their gifts of
intellect and power of expression. What
are sins in other men are in them simply
the errors supposed to be the natural ac-
compartments to high-strung sensitive peo-
Pile of more than common intellectual
ability.
Women who marry such men usually do
so through admiration of their talents and
blind unreasoning sentiment The tragedy
of an unhappy marriage very often follows
A poet, an artist, famous writer, whatever
may be his failings, appeals to the vanity
and soft side of sentimental women, ed
they fail to see how men inspired by genius,
and the producers of such beautiful words
| and noble works can be aught but lovely in
the everyday business of domestic life.
Milton, one of the greatest of English poets,
fell suddenly in love with Mary Powell at
the age of 80.
What Bf;ton's Honeymoon Revealed.
She may have been attracted by his fame
as writer, or his beauty as a man, or by
the mysterious illusion of love which so
often impels women to marry the hen least
suited to them. or it may have been the
blind chance which brings to so many blank
in the lottery cf marriage. But the honey
moon destroyed the illusion, made the blank
a reality, and emphasized the fact that poets,
as a rule, are not fitted for genial pleas
ant companions. They have little or no
taste for the sweetness and happiness of
domestic life. Milton NAV have chosen his
wife through vanity or caprice, as they say
most men do. He may have supposed, in
the plenitude of his brain power, that his
such as he could feel for an inferior being,
would be duly appreciated by her in the
way of a return of defereLce to his whims
and entire submission to his will in all
things.
He proposed to rule in all matters. He
intended to allow no impediment whatever
to interfere with his chosen pursuits. His
dignity did not suffer him to come down to
the small affairs Of life. He scared to the
sublime and lived upon the heights, while
he expected her to dig and delve to secure
his daily comfort. As wife, she resented
his neglect. She grew weary of his harsh
ness She had no taste for being snubbed.
| She found that poet in domestic life was
more of an inspired tyrant than an agree
| able companion. At the end of a month
| she went home to her people, refused
| to return, or to send any answers to
his demands. Then he poured out his soul
and vented his rage in his writings upon di-
| vorce.
Experience Made Him No WISER
After some time they became reconci1ed,
| and accepted their lot in lite as husband
and WIFE The marriage was not a happy
| one, but after this first wife's death Milton
showed himself no wiser by virtue of this
| experience than before, since he married
two others afterward without any happier
| results. He entertained a low opin-
| Ion of the intellect of women, and DIR.
johnson is authority for the statement
| that he would not permit his daughters to
| learn to write However this may be, the
| fact seems to be that his judgment belied
| his brains, and that his wives and daughters
| hated him and complained much Of his
| cruelty. One of his daughters, it is said
| on hearing that he was to be married the
third time, said that 'his marriage was no
news; the best news would be his death"
His domestic life was unhappy all the way
through. which shows that Milton in his
choice of wives exercised neither wisdom
nor common sense and that the wives in ac-
qepting poet, with all his genius and
| fame, did not consider the character of the
man, or else we're deficient in the faculty of
managing him.
The Justly celebrated poet, Robert Burns,
with his fitful flashes of poetic fire. his in
tensity of passion and vividness Of imagina-
tion, was not a husband to make wife
happy. His "Bonnie jean had much to
be patient with, much to forgive and much
to suffer. Domestic trouble OF his own
making cast cloud over both their lives
The glow and fervor of his brilliant genius
were only equaled by the intensity of his
disgust with the straits of poverty, and the
disappointment of his most cherished
hopes.
The Case Of Lord Byron.
Poor Byron's story is we'll known. He
was stern stoical and revengefuL He mar
ried more through motives of revenge than
love. Duty, self-control, respectability
were English virtues he refused to recog-
nlZe. MorDlu, quarrelsome, cynlcaI, ne
poured out his wrath upon his wife without
stint. Their tempers were incompatible.
He rebelled with all the passionate fury of
great genius against the restraints of
domestic life and the conventionalities of
society. All the miseries OF a mad mar
riage were realized to the full by beth of
them. At the end of year they Iepar-
ated never to meet again. What she saw in
him beyond the poet, who can tell?
Shelley made blunder in his first mar
riage. Poets, they say, fall in love with
the ideal woman, not the real one, hence
comes the oft repeated statement that
great poets who marry are uniformly un-
happy in domestic life" Women who
marry men of genius do so through senti-
ment, and soon find the end of their illu-
sions No man, says Madame de Sevigne,
is hero to his valet, and no poet or genius
is demigod to his wife alter she has dis
covered how he can grumble over his din
ner, aad make himself generally disagree
able as a crank full of tantrums. There is
hardly marriage made that the Mrs Grun-
dies do not hold up their hands and wag
their tongues to ask what on earth the man
saw in that woman to attract him. A beau
tiiuI woman never weds that there are not
IL 1Ias ,,I IL