The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-11-26
WORKS OF SOME GREAT MEN.
What They Require in Them-some
Strange PecuIiarities.

strange Pecu1tartties.
Wives Of great men all remind US that
no genius is ever satisfied with a mate
whose talents are purely domestic, and to
hold the affections of a gifted husband
woman must be something else than mere
ly a good housekeeper. A dozen points to
this moral may be cited, and none will
serve to clinch the argument more firmly
than the case of Richard Wagner and his
first wife. In his youth the great must
clan chose partner from the stage; a
plump, pretty and pleasing little person
who was thoroughly devoted to her hus-
bands physical well being, who did not
hesitate to stand at the washtub when
the author of Tristan and Isolde couldn't
afford a laundress. who kept his garnet
home in Paris the pink of cleanliness and
contrived meals for him from the scantiest
provisions that ever fell to a cooks lot.
AS a housekeeping wife, of the type ST
Paul so highly recommends, she was near
perfection, but she could not understand
her husbands musical passions and yearn-
ings, nor did she have much patience with
his ever banging piano and after having
devoted her youth and strength uncom-
plainingly to his service she found he bore
her no more love than man might feel
for faithful but stupid servant.
In very painful contrast to this tale of
unrequited service and devotion is the mat
rimonal relations of Mozart and his wife.
Poor overworked genius! He welded pref
ty, gay Constance Weber who loved to lie
abed late, who kept her pink palms smooth
as satin, who thought it no injustice for
her busy harrassed husband to cook and
serve his meals himself as best he might
and who spent all the money he earned
on her frills and furbelows. Well, he we'd
ed her and loved her with a reverent, I'M
Al. i
to your eyes as you read his story. He
thought her much too fine and dainty to
bother with dirty cooking utensils, he
worshipped her beauty arrayed in fine
frocks and he left little tender missives
pinned to her pillow in the morning when
he sneaked out to pick up meal as best
he might. With all her selfishness and
neglect he forgave and loved her because
she was pretty, her ways were carressing
and endearing and she satisfied his ar
tistic temperament in the way a conscienu-
Gus, hard working faithful Martha could
never have touched or held him.
The same sad story is true of Andrea
del Sarto, the perfect painter. He dis
graced himself for a wife not even so
worthy as poor Mozart's, while Dante and
Milton and Coleridge found the matri-
monal yoke too heavy for endurance with
wives who were capable cooks and ad-
mirable mothers, but whose souls were not
attuned to poetry. The grand exception
to this rule is no less important individ-
ual than Goethe. After long years of
bachelorhood, the independent poet took
to wife a plain little German girl a typical
haus frau, to whom nevertheless he was
uncommonly kind. Balzac, on the other
hand waited until his career was almost
over before he screwed his courage up to
the point of marrying and then chose a
Russian lady whose esprit and good looks
took his heart by storm.
Where great men have married hap
PLY they have chosen wives whose brains
and hearts were equally balanced with
domestic shrewdness. Bismarck, Glad
stone, Lord Salisbury and Dom Paul are
among the sensible geniuses who married
at once good housekeepers and clever
women. Mrs. Kruger though her husband
may be a millionaire, as his adversaries
suggest, knits his socks, makes his coffee,
tucks up her skirt to aid a little Kaffir
girl, her sole maid servant a bout me no ee
work and contentedly wears a sunbon
net or "kappie" as the Dutch call it; but
for all that like the wife of German
William she knows the political situation
in the country her husband governs as
well as he knows it himself. Tante Krug-
er is Dom Paups second brain and con-
science, and in the privacy Of the presi-
dental mansion has been known TO scold
at his mistakes, suggest his next man
euvres and she detests his enemies and
the English with wholesome vigor.
Madame THEIRS like Mrs. Kruger, cared
nothing al all for the glorles of her hus-