Greenbrier independent. [volume] (Lewisburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1980, 1895-03-14
Some Wives of Great Men.
AUTHORS AND ARTISTS WHO WERE
HAPPY IN THEIR HOMES.


formed 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, discomforts and
hardships of domestic life, and Kan.
tippe, who could not at all compre.
hend his sublime Indifference to ap.
pearances or creature comforts, nat
urally became shrew.
Euripides is supposed to have had
wife whose mental and moral
worthlessness 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 dramatist in
contempt for sex which he was
wont to declare was created only for
the destruction of. the world. Ra-
cine's wife lived for many years on
the money won from her husbands
dramas without knowing what a
drama was.
Dante, while in his Vita Nuova''
and the Divine Comedy" he con-
stantly eXalts the angelic Beatrice,
has never a word 10 say Of Gemma
Donati, his faithful wife and mother
of his seven children.
John Milton's marriages were not
happy, but this was largely the fault
OF his ideas in regard to mans supe-
rlority 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 de-
servedly unhappy. The famous
anatomist and author, John Hunter,
married wife who adOred fashiOna-
Bile society, which he hated, and they
quarreled constantly. Count Rum
ford, the great chemist, had a wife
who would go off into tantrums,
throw his bottles and jars out of the
window and make general havoc
with his scientific collections.
Late in life the sanity John Wes-
ley married widow and a termagant,
who used to yank him around and
pull his hair, and who delighted in
tormenting him. Finally she ran
away from him, and he never asked
her to come back.
Ben Johnson had shrewish wife
very much after the pattern of Kan
tippe. This woman certainly had
much provocation for the seedlings
she gave her husband, as she fetched
him home from the ale houses, beat
ing him every step of the way.
The domestic infelicities of Lord
Byron and his wife are known to all.
So is the tragic story of Shelly's first
wife, Harriet Westbrook.
The wife of Dickens might have
sat for the portrait of the ld-wife
Dora in " David Copperfield." She
was good-natured and harmless, but
she would go to sleep when her hus-
band read to her even from the most
exciting chapters of his works.
Thackeray's wife went daft on reli-
gious subjects, but he manfully kept
his sorrow from the world.
Albert Durer, the famous German
painter, had virag0 for n wife. In.
stances of domestic incompatibility
among the great lights of literature
and art might be multiplied, but they
do not prove that the great geniuses
are any harder to live with than
commonplace people. The former
are like cities set on hill whose
light cannot be hid, while the do
mestic strifes and chickering's of the
latter classes 90 on unheeded by the
world.
This shield has another side. Cor
reggie and Reubens had wives sc
lovely in person and character thai
from them they painted those sanity
Madonnas that are the admiration o.
the world. The two marriages OF
Lope de Vega were supremely happy
DIR. Samuel Johnson, though mar
ried to woman twice his age
thought her the lOveliest and mos
perfect being in the world. Richard
Steele, Lord Clarendon, Leigh Hunt
Barry COrnwell and scores of othe
British authors might be mentioned
as having been very happy in do
mestic life. Sir Walter Scott's hom
life was sunny and peaceful, though
his wife would say, ~ must hav
Walter write some more of his trasl
so that we may afford new carpet.
Mrs. Somerville, the great mathe
matician, was perfect as wife an,
mother, and allowed no studies t
supplant her domestic duties. Tn
: ideal married life of Robert an,
Elizabeth Browning was an exam
, pie to all. Never did poet writ
sWeeter verses than those whic
: Browning addressed to the wifi
whom he called his "mOon O
poets"
The wife of the poet Schiller wa
. lovely in mind and person. Thei
? home life passed life poets dream
GOethre seemed content with Chris
tine Vulpius, the commonplace VIC
e man whom he had made his wife
t The marriage of Chevalier Bunser
: the great German historian, was a
0 ideally happy one.
: These examples are few anon
n the many of happy home lives ths
e have blessed the worlds great al
8 thors and artists, must suffice for tn
present. They disprove, the Mime
: apolis Tribune argues, the prevaler
theory that geniuses are more irrits
BILE than other people and less libe
ally endowed with the domestic VII
e tues.
h TT Is THEIR Doodl,
d man: have often been accused {
h being an ass, but that was only as
@ joke; and yet, do you know, I ofte