Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-04-14
GREAT MEMS BIRTHDAYS.
The Stars Seem to Have Little to Do
With Genius.

From the New York Mail and Express.
The great peoples birthdays are an in
teresting study It Is certainly hard to de-
rive any deduction as to their character
from their birthdays or their birth months
We find poets, warriors, sages, craftsmen
and misers inextricably mingled on the
calendar, apparently. There are curious
coincidences-such, for instance, as the
birth of Cornelius Vanderbilt and Jay
Gould on the 9th Of May Q794 and 1850;
but II we hasten to infer some quanty
about that date which tends to make mil
uonaires we wonder why 1t did not make
was born on the same day. Dante. VAN
derbilt, Julia Ward Howe, Jay Gould and
Gen. Nathaniel Greene make a suHiclentiy
incongruous showing for that one Day.
Again, If we find in the somewhat re-
markable circumstance that Robert Schu-
mann, Hans Won Buelow and Lowell Ma
son were born on the Sth Of January llelO'
1880 and 1892. an influence 1aVoIapie "
the development of musical genius, we
wonder why it did not make musician OF
Wilkie Collins, who was born on the same
day The 18th of January might be &C
counted propitious for literary genius. on
Franklin and Alferi; but what an inter
loper that canny Yankee politician Caleo
Gushing, was in such company! IL IS I'M
possible to discover any astrological rel
eyancy between Daniel Webster Monies
ouieu. Charles Kean and Austin Dobson,
who first saw the frosty light on various
1Sths Of January; ana there Is a o1s Han.
guished irrelevancy between Hannah More
and Nell Gwynn who came to the earth on
the I'd Of February.
Here are three distinguished soldiers an
born on the 9Th Of Mareh1'om shar,ds sl
Perhaps the sta--gazers could tell US why
they came thus together; and while they
are telling us. we should like TO know
Nf
barrett Browning; one great artist MI
chaelangelo Buonarotd and one man who
united the qualities of artist and man or
letters in no eminent sense. George Du
Maurier came into life also on the I'd OF
John &. Calhoun and Grover Cleveland
were born on the 18th Of March. Doubt
less they had some views In common; put
And now for a day of charming incon-
eruities: the same day that saw the birth
Of Ovid, March 20. also Witnessed the ap-
pearance in the world Of Neal Dow. Hem
Fix Ibsen and Charles w. Eliot! But April
was surely q great day Tor letters; be
hold the advent upon 1t OF George Herbert,
washington Irving. Mary Carpenter. Ed
ward Everett Hale. John Phoenix and
John Burroughs! One wonders what Leon
Gambetta was doing dams cette galere.
Among tncongruides we snan perhaps nna
Plato and Paul de Kock on the list OF
May, unless it were the appearance Of Soc
rates and George III on the 4th of June.
and George Washington and Arthur Schop-
enhauer on the 22d Of February. Haw
thorne, on his birthday, which was the
Atm Of July, has the company of Monsieur
Pierre Lott; one wonders II he would like
Ii, and also whether he finds Gartbaldt and
Carolus Duran. also born on our patriotic
anniversary. more congenial.
The more, In fact. we study the matter
of great mems birthdays the more likely
n, "a convinced that greatness Ia
a matter of inheritance and environment
and not Of astrology, and that II we are
underiings the fault dear Brutus. Is not
In our stars but In ourselves.