Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1905-01-07
REJECTED SUITORS.
FAMOUS LOVERS WHO HAVE BEEN
VICTIMS OF CUPID'S FRANKS.

Byron's Cruel Experience With AIiss
Chaworth-shelley's Affairs of the
Heart-The Girl Who Was Much Too
Good to Marry Abe Lincoln.
1t may be of some consolation to the
rejected lover to remember that many
Of the greatest men in history have
suffered equal pangs and survived the
same ordeal to find married happiness
elsewhere
Even Byron. that most beautiful and
gifted of men, had more than his share
Of refusals, and one of them at least
was accompanied by words which left
sting to his last day. He was only
a Harrow schoOlbOy of sixteen when
he fell madly in love with Miss Cha
worth of Annesley. Il young heiress OF
some beauty, who was two years older
than himself.
But Miss Chaworth treated all the
boys shy advances with laughter and
contempt, and, although he was "suf-
fering the tortures of the LOST for her
sake, refused to take him seriously.
But the browning blow came when, in
an adjacent room, he overheard Miss
ChawOrth say to her maid, do you
think l could care anything for that
lame boyY' This cruel speech" he
afterward said, was like a shot
through my heart. Although it was
late and pitch dark, l darted out of the
house and never stopped running until
l reached Newsteau.'
Shelley, too, almost as handsome and
as gifted as Byron, knew from more
than one experience the ''pangS of re-
lection" After he had been expelled
from oxford and went to London with
his fellow culprit, Hogg, to live, he fell
violently in love with his landlady's
daughter, who bore the unrOmantic
name of Eliza Jenkins. But Eliza.
even though he threatened to commit
suicide in his despair, refused to have
anything to do with him, and when a
few months later, having thought bet
ter of the suicidal threat. he sought to
console himself by paying court to
Miss Harriet Grove, Il pretty cousin.
she was so alarmed at his heterodoxies
that she sent him very decidedly about
his business
When Sheridan, following the exam
pie Of many other amorous young men,
fell over head and ears in love with
Miss Linley, the beautiful singer. "she
only laughed at his ardor and made
faces at him behind his back" and yet
he used that subtle and eloquent
tongue Of his to such purpose that he
actually ran away with her to a French
nunnery and married her after fighting
several duelS with his rivals and her
prosecutors.
When Burke, the great politician and
orator, was a student at Trinity col
lege, Dublin, he is said to have had
more than one love disappointment.
His first infatuation was for the
daughter of a small publican, whose
dark eyes fred the blood of the young
Irishman," but after coquetting with
him for time she Tilted him in the
most heartless fashion. His success,
too. with his beautiful countrywoman,
Margaret Wellington, was no greater,
although he remained her loyal lover to
the last
When Abraham Lincoln, as q youth
Of eighteen, was living in a rude log
cabin in Spencer county, Ind, and
picking up the rudiments Of education
in the intervals of rail splitting and
piowing," he fell in love with the
daughter OF poor Irish settler in
neighboring log cabin, and after many
clumsy failures to declare his love
to her i'm person penned with difficulty
one of his first letters, asking her to
become his wife.
He never received an answer to this
clumsy effusion," as he afterward call.
ed 1t. but when next he met Bridget
''she tossed her head and looked
another way" She was much too good,
she is said to have declared, to marry
gawky farm laborer. Then 1t was
that Lincoln left the paternal cabin
and voyaged as hired hand on a fiat
boat into that greater world which
before long WAS to ring with the name
OF the gawky farm boy. When, thir>
teen years or SO later. Abraham Lin
coin became president of the United
States. Bridget was still living, 1.-The
wife of farm laborer in
log cabin" and still preserved the Ill
penned letter which might. If she had
been wise. have made her the first
lady Of the land"
It f. well known that Jean Baptiste
Bernadotte. when he was a private OF
marines. was Indignantly refused by a
girl of very humble rank who thought
herself much too good to marry q
common soldier" What her renec-
lions were in later years. when the
despised private was the powerful
king Of Sweden and Norway. history