The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-02-16
UNHAPPY GENIUS,
Some of the Great Men Who Have Been
Notably Unhappy in Their Domestic
Arrangements.

Some of the Great Men Who Have Been
Notably Unhappy in Their Domestic
Arrangements.
From the Minneapolis Tribune.
The miseries of the domestic life Of
literary people of both sexes have
formed a fruitful theme for remark and
comment. 1t is quite the thing to begin
with Socrates and Xantippe. the woman
! having unjustly had to bear most OF
the blame. Socrates was a good man,
but he lived up in the clouds, leaving
| his wife to bear alone the poverty, dis
comforts and hardships of domestic life,
| and Xantippe, who could not at all COM
prehend his sublime Indifference TO ap-
| pearances or creature comforts, natur-
| ally became shrew
Euripides is supposed to have had
! wife whose mental and moral worth
lessness barbed those poisoned arrows
which he hurled against the whole world
Of women. This is known certainly TO
| have been the case with Moliere, who Is
not whit behind the Athenian dramat-
ist in contempt for Sex which he was
wont TO declare was created only for
the destruction of the world. Racines
wife lived for many years on the money
won from her husbands dramas with
| out knowing what drama was.
Dante, while in his Vita Nuova" and
| the Divine Comedy" he constantly ex-
alts the angelic Beatrice, has never q
word TO say of Gemma Donati, his faith
full wife and the mother of his seven
children
NiltOn's Luckless Venture.
| John Millions marriages were not
| happy: but this was largely the fault
Of his ideas in regard to mans superior
| ty and the duty of woman to be subject
to him as lord and master. The genial
Joseph Addison married high-strung
| widow of wealth and rank who led him
a sorry life. Henry Fielding chose for
his wife an ignorant servant girl, and
was deservedly unhappy. The famous
anatomist and author, John Hunter,
married a wife who adored fashionable
society which he hated, and they quar-
relied constantly. Count Rumford, the
great chemist, had wife who would go
off into tantrums, throw his bottles and
jars out of the window, and make gen.
eral havoc with his scientific collections.
Late in life, the sanity John Wesley
who used to yank him around, and -
pull his hair, and who delighted in tor
menting him. Finally she ran away
! from him, and he never asked her 70
come back.
Ben Jonson had shrewish wife very
much after the pattern Of Xantippe.
This woman certainly had much provo
cation for the seedlings she gave her
| Sha fat home
/ the ale houses beating him every step
of the way.
| The domestic infelicities of Lord
Byron and his wife are known TO all.
So is the tragis story of Sheliey's frst
wife, Harriet Westbrook.
The wife of Dickens might have sat
for the portrait of the child-wife Dora
| in David Copperfeld." She was good
natured and harmless, but she would
go to sleep when her husband read to-
her even from the most exciting chap
ters of his works. Thackeray's wife
went daft on religious subjects, but he
manfully kept his sorrow from the
| world.
Albert Durer, the famous German
painter, had a virago for wile. IN
| stances of domestic mcompatloiii'y
among the great lights OF hterature
and art might be multiplied But 'hey
do not prove that the great geniuses
are any harder to live with than COM
monpace people. The former are IKE
cities set on a hill whose hsht canho.
be hid while the domestic strifes anu
chickering's of the latter class go on uh-
needed by the world.
The Other Side.
This shield has another side. Corres-
rio and Rubens had wives so loNeiy III
nerson and character, that from theih
they painted those sanity Madomlas
that are the admiration of the worid.
The two marriages of Lope de vega
were supremely happy.
DIR, Samuel Johnson, though married
to a woman twice his age, thougnt
her the loveliest and most perfect be-
ing In the world. Richard Steele, LORD
, larendon, Leigh Hunt. Barry Corn
all, and scores of other British au-
.ors might be mentioned as having
zen very happy in domestic life. Sir
Walter Scott's home life was sunny
nd peaceful, though his wife would
ny, Il must have Walter write some
lore of his trash so that we may AFFORD
new carpet
Mrs. Somerville, the great mathema-
cian, was perfect as a wife ana
lother. and allowed no studies to sup
liant her domestic duties. The ideal
narried life of Robert and Elizabeth
browning was an example to all. Never
lid poet write sweeter verses than
hose which Browning addressed to
he wife whom he called his moon OF
)oets.'
The wife of the poet Schiller was
lovely in mind and person. Their home
life passed like poets dream. Goethe
seemed content with Christine Yulpius.
the common place woman whom he
had made his wife. The marriage OF
Chevalier Bunsen, the great German
historian, was an ideally happy one.
These examples. the few among the
many of happy home lives that have
blessed the worlds great authors ana
artists, must suffice for the present.
They disprove the prevalent theory
hat geniuses are more irritable than
other people, and less literally en-
dowed with the domestic virtues.
-
The Pnradoxicai Tcuton.
How paradoxical the Germans are, COM
plains a Frenchman In Figaro can best