The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-11-23
MEN UNMADE BY WIVES
sTATEsEEN WHOSE HEIPMEETs
 PROVED THEIR UNDoINa.
Marriage Often an Aid-Disraeli, Gladstone and Salisbury Were All Spurred on by Ann
 bilious Love.


 bilious Bove.
  T. P o'Connor's Foreign Correspondence
 in Chicago Tribune.
 Lord Kitchener has been getting into trouble by his frank declaration of his preference for bachelor over married of- fcers as his comrades and subordinates. It has been pointed out that facts within his knowledge and within his own circle are in contradiction with his theories. For instance among those who were in his inner circle of friends and colleagues were General Ian Hamilton. General French, and several others who are mar ried men. And whenever you speak to anybody who has known Lord Kitchener during all his life the old friend gives an l enigmatic smile.
 Then comes a mysterious hint that if Lord Kitchener be still a bachelor it is not his fault, but the want of discrimina- | ton on the part of some fair one-un- worthy to take up the proffered glove of | the brave and obscure young lover that | Kitchener once was.
 Be that as 1t may, Lord Kitchener is | now bachelor, and is loud in his praise. Which drives MT. c. R. Sims and me ! into the discussion of an old question. Depends More on the Wife. Is 1t good or is it bad for an ambitious man to be married? It is evidently a | question to which there can be no single and satisfactory answer. It depends much on the man; it depends little more on the woman. If anybody says to me that he has never known any ambitious man who was not helped by his wife l can cite many an instance to the con | trary.
 If. on the other hand, an equally self confident person make the statement that | no ambitious man ever got on who was | not bachelor. I can give chapter. and verse to the contrary and by the score. Dizzy would have ended in the Marshalsea | If he had not found wife who was able | to pay-his debts and help to make him | Buckinghamshire squire.It was through | honeers not frightened by sherffrs, fees and other such items in the career of | the parliamentary aspirant Mrs. Gladstone's Influence. Gladstone would not have been half the \ man he was if he hadn't found in Mrs. | Gladstone a helpmeet whose infinite love and unfailing patience and motherly care | were always at his side to chide, to bear with, and to watch over him.
 | Lord Salisbury was made by what the him to write for the newspapers, and thus | gave him that readiness of tongue and of | pen which accounted for the great posi- ! tion he afterwards attained; and 1t was not till the woman. he loved so deeply 1 became ill and died that his strength | gave way and that he had to surrender the mighty burden of an empires rule George Eliot Spoiled by Marriage. I have been rereading recently the life l of George Eliot, and I am not sure that | union with George Henry Lewes did much to destroy her-both as woman and as | an artist. 1t is true that without Lewes | with all his perfect knowledge of the | tTad da nf laff -1ap nd h f,a v and devoted and inspiring fove-it Is pos- l sible that George Eliot, who was the most l diffident of women. would never have ha | the courage to write at all, and would have zone to the grave unknown, except to Herbert Spencer. Frederick Harrison, | and the other philosophers of the world 1 as one of the few women who understood metaphysics. and as the daring and la- borious spirit who transferred to Eng fish one anti-Christian work of Strauss and the broad theology of Fuerbach. l Made by Environment.
 Of all beings there Is none SO utterly dependent on his environment for his | work and for his philosophy as the man of letters laugh when read some dis sertatfons on the origins of this or that
 novelist's philosophy: how according to some 1t is because he was brought un in this creed or in that; or because he Kant when he was old for I know all the time that the whole outlook of the man on life is to be accounted for by the wife who is suitable and Is a help and a light. or by the wife who Is unsuitable and is hindrance. and spreads between him and the world the thick and black | veil of nersonal WI r>tehedness.
 Politicians Ruined by Wives.
 On the other hand. have known plenty | of cases of politicians who were ruined by their wives. or by other women. Some of these tragedies became public property; others-and perhaps some of the most | tragic-have passed unnoticed and un- | known. I knew when first entered the | House of Commons a distinguished noli- | tician; he had been a cabinet minister once. and everybody expected that he would be a cabinet minister again. But l somehow or other he fell Into sudden ob- scurity: came seldom to the House of Commons: In year or two grew sudden | ly old and more or less of an invalid: and in short time had passed from the ranks 1 Of men who had to be counted with when a new prime minister had once more to make up his cabinet.
 Insane Wife the Cause.
 And a sesni-insane wife was the explana- | ton. Whenever he tried to do anything in the. House there was this poor crea. | ture-for she was as much to be pitied as her husband-lying In wait with that | fell desire to stab. and wound. and de- | stroy which is one of the characteristics of insanity; and If he attempted to go to the House of Commons she threw herself on the floor in a wild fit of mysteries; and then he was given the dreadful alternative l of neglecting and abandoning his work | in Parliament. or of going there haunted by the specter of this writhing and suf- | ferire figure in the darkness of his home.
 Other Women Often to Blame.
 Sometimes the woman who wrecks q l politician is not his wife. and then there | Is scarcely such a thing as an hour of l unmitigated ease or of whole hearted | work possible to him. I saw the strong l est man of our times-a man whom I 1 knew as staIwart youth. who could walk his twenty miles a day. and who laughed at Imprisonment and perhaps even at ] death-I saw him eaten away by such a | secret as was the Spartan boy who held the fox inside his coat till 1t had eaten | cut his entra!ls.
 | A few years ago there was a young member of Parliament who had every thing in his favor. He was member of | an aristocratic and a wealthy family: | he was a scholar Of repute. an antinuary, l was one of the three last people who knew anything of the now extinct Cor | nish language. and he belonged to that southwestern country where the clannish- -ess Nf the neople helps a man to get on in Parliament. And he was getting on. for he was given junior office as the
 beginning of a career.
 Suddenly the office was dropped: the
 menher disappeared: I met him occa .
 sionally afterwards-stili young in looks. | wAli drassad Interesting. and vet uon rk afl