The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-05-19
DID BARRIE FORESHADOW
s HIS FATE IN LIFE ?
In His Novel, when Mans Single the Author Seems to
Have Written His Hearts Blood-A Repetition of
Ruskin's Atttude-Should the Artist Marry?
nv DOLLY DALRYMPLE.

With the cabes flashing the news from
London town that our beloved MI. Bar
re, who wrote all those beautiful things
about Sentimental Tommy and Tom
my and Grizzle" and 1.-THE Little Minis
teri and "A Window in Thrums" and
"What Every Woman Knows" with all
those wonderful people and situations
which we have come to love, after having
given his wife over to her lover, young
Gilbert Cannon, year or more ago. not
content with. that and nice bit of all
mony, now declares that he will be "best
mar" at the wedding.
Sort of disllusioning, isn't it?
1t makes US reflect upon the worn ques-
ton of the artistic temperament and
whether the artist after all should marry
or remain in state of celibacy all his
days.
and bubbling over with genius, asked the
great Balzao whether artists should
marry, he sternly advised: avoid women
altogether
But Notwithstanding this advice, when
one looks over the field from Socrates
to Robert and Clara Schumann, the
scales tip about, evenly
Schopenhauer once said:
When wives come in at the door, wis
dom escapes by the window"
The roll call of happy and unhappy
men and women of genius would indeed
be a long one. Read Daudet's charming
yet depressing book Of tales about the
wives of men of genius. All! this ar
tistic temperament! What is it? Whence
comes it. Whittier does 1t go?
Byron raised merry hell" wherever he
went, while Shelley, after a eheckered
career. lived ever happily afterward with
the original woman suffragist, Mary Wolf
stonecraft Goodwin. Dickens didn't draw
happiness in the Lottery of Love- yet
Disraeli did; also Tennyson. George
Meredith was q happy married man,
whilc George Moore is a bachelor and
writes like one.
Rabelais was lie Grand Ceibate,"
while Chateaubrland had his consultations
and Madame Recamier! Madame DeStael
bored Napoleon to a FRAGILE and got on
Goethe's nerves! List ran the gamut of
love, accused by his friends of being the
past grand master in gyneolatry. while
he played scales and wrote arpeggios that
nobody could play! Yet we see Paderew-
ski welded happinly and attracting large
audiences!
Rubens and Van Dyke spent joyful mar
red lives, as well as our modern Whist
Ter. while Monticello, one of the greatest
coorsts of them ALL a century behind
u.s. remained single.
D'Annunzio and Eleanor Duse did not
marry, yet the former has utilized his
experience for his books!
And now comes our beloved Barrie!
Alas! he has tried his hand at marital
bliss and failed! Yet assuming" an atti-
tude which is nothing short of unusual
20 say the least, scarcely ever known
except, perhaps, in the case of Ruskin,
who likewise tried matrimony and fall
ing. quietly handed over his wife to
Nilais, the artist, and visited them at
their home and enjoyed their society i'm
mensely.
And again alas! the mystery of these
artistic transmutations!
II an artist and his wife tire OF each
otfier they are dragged into court now
adsys and 'affinities' are produced-a
word at which all decent people shudder!
And yet it was Goethe who wrote the
arst problem novel," says Mr.. Huneker,
land called it Elective Affinities.'
At any rate, Mr.. Barrie's admirers have