Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1896-05-08
GREAT MEN AND MARRIAGE.
Several Notable bachelors and tn,
Reasons They Did Not Wed.

Reasons They Did Not Wed.
From the Boston Globe
Perhaps the only modern instance of a
mans desisting from marriage because of
an openly indicated dislike of women is
Algernon Charles Swinburne, the poet.
Naturally of a very retiring nature and re-
served to GOODNESS, he has pointedly avoided
women wherever he could and though ex-
ceedingly warm and faithful in his friend
ships with men, for few women has he
showed the smallest admiration or under
standing.
Any one of the weaker sex whose mind is
cultivated beyond the limits set by old
fashioned prejudice is, in his eyes, the most
unattractiVe of her kind, and even the wives
of his best friends he rather avoids, while
the one historical woman of whom he has
written, poor Mary of Scotland, has suffered
bitter criticism a his hands.
Undoubtedly his sore aff1iction of chronic
nervousness has done much to confirm him
IN this sour bacn2lorhood, as we'll as his
preference for the quietest country life,
spent chiefly in his paternal home near Hen
ley-on-t he-ThameS. Here he dwells in some
what solitary grandeur, and though so fear
ful and scornful of women, he was in his
youth pronounced by competent feminine
critics to be attractive enough, with his SEN
sitive, handsome face and his splendid ac-
accomplishments of muscle as well as mind.
The heir apparent to the throne of Italy,
the Prince of Naples, discourages all OF his
parents selections in prospective brides He
has said he will marry when he loves, hut
as he avoids courts and feminine society as
much as possible the unpleasant word mis-
ogamist has frequently come to the ears
CT MS ambitious parents, and the most fat
tering suggestion for an alliance with one
OF the nobest and most powerful houses in
Europe has been recently set aside by his
wish.
Sir Isaac Newton n "Mother Man."
No man felt the maternal influence in a
stronger degree than did that scientific
bachelor Sir Isaac Newton. He was an only
child. and peculiarly faithful one, and
though Mrs. Newton lived quietly in her
country home and Sir Isaac large part of
the time in London, he obeyed, venera ted
and watched over her to the last hour of her
life
Yet with the peculiar maternal selfishness,
displayed under the gUise of devotion, she
froWned on every one of her sons attach
nents. At every suggestion of his marriage
she wept and wrung her hands. until he
Gbediently resigned all thoughts of domestic
bliss, and after her death found himself too
old and too deeply absorbed in his scientific
studies TO change his mode of life.
Charles Eaudalare, the poet, gov
erned in nearly the same degree by his
mothers preferences. Though he was way
ward. eccentric and willful to a most painful
extent, she remained his best ideal his one
pure belief throughout his brief. miserable
career, ana when other voice could pre-
vail her wishes were his law.
In the category of very jolly bachelors
Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, the great land
scapist, belongs. In his youth, when against
his fathers wishes, he chose to paint in
place of shopkeeping, he had only an allow
ance of 500 to live on, and upon that he
frankly acknowledged. he could not keep a
wife. Later, when his father doubled this
income, he still adhered to his belief that
domestic happiness comes only for good
price, and, as he was sixty years old when
his first picture sold, he felt it too late
to make the experiment OF welded life.
Then there was Mile. Rose, who had
worked in the hair shop Corot had scorned
and with whom, fro n his first youth. he
maintained a friendship. But the friendship
never seemed to ripen to a warmer feeling,
though the pretty, modest French girl re-
fused all offers from other admiring SWANS.
Every day she came and sat a while in the
spacious studio, with a rather wistful ex-
preston in her eyes, and the handsome
sweet-tempered artist was to her always the
NJ. Camille of her youth. But Mile. Rose
died a spinster and Corot lived jolly bach
elor to the last.
Lambs Devotion to n Sister.
Charles Lamb very heroically sacrificed
his matrimonial prospects for the sake OF
his sister Mary. The dreams of a happy life
with his first and only love. Anna, he set
aside in order that he might nurse, amuse
and work for the poor insane sister, on
whom he lavished all the interest and ten
derness which a man would otherwise have
given to a wife and children.
Edward Fitzgerald, the translator of Omar
Khayyam, was the gentest of misogamsts,
as was Phillips Brooks, and as is the charm
ing gentleman and naturalist, John Bur
roughS. With music languages and letters
Fitzgerald used to make himself entirely
happy in his quiet country retreats. He
loved once, and early in his life was d.sap-
pointed. dttSTWdru avoided
wies of Cupid.
No one was ever found quite bold enough
to make any Investigation into the cause of
Bishop Brooks celiDacy. 1t was with him
evidently a matter of choice, for no ro-
mances are recorded of his school col
lege days, even by members of his family,
though many women We're his devoted
friends, and his love for children was I'M
bounded.
When some one asked friend of Samuel
j. Tilden why the wealthy statesman had
never married, the prompt reply was he
could never make up his mind. Though an
ardent aimirer of women, and stanch be-
lever in the capacities of the feminine mind,
he wavered. halted, considered and hest
tated over every temptation to enter the holy
bonds and then retired each time. uncertain
as to the wisdom of the STEP
Walt Whitman chung to his bachelorhood
as he did to his strange opinions. his curious
dress and eccentric habits. a matter of
principle, and not at all from any indiffer-
ence to woman. His mother was his admira-
ton and idol. He worked hard to support
her in comfort, her tears sent him first into
the army hospital to nurse a wounded
brother, and her death was a prostrating
blow from which he never recovered
There IS a pretty and not wholly improb-
able story in John Greenleaf Whittiers life
of schoolboy tenderness for a little fellow
scholar. The small girl promised to wait
while he made his fortune. but waiting Is
weary work, schoolgirl promises are lightly
broken, and while yet a boy. the RESPONSE
hilites of a fatherless family fell on the
young poet.
Henry James Reason
Henry James. the novelist, maintains that
single blessedness is the only blessedness
for the artist or the genius. for the carping
details of domestic life exhaust finely. tuned
nerves and warm, delicate mental fiber-a
theory he practices by living in the most ex-
quiste bachelor chambers in London enter
tanning and being entertained. and in spite
of the witty. beautiful women about him,
maintaining his single state.
With the regularity of autumn's arrival
news of n Jean de Reszke's enga cement 10
waited across the ocean, greatly to the
amusement of the singer himself NJ de
Reszke is not this year enga ged, nor has no
so far any intention of future homestead ton
say his most trusted friends.
The married tenor, he believes loses one