The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-01-18
LoUe Affairs Mingled With Literatlsre In
 Victorian Era

1899 sfie complied with previous re- quest of George Smith and wrote the prefaces to Messrs. Smith and Elders Haworth edition of the Bronte novels, task that was particularly congenial for the reason that she always had a peculiarly vivid feeling for, the genius and tragedy of the Bronte sisters.
 It is commonplace of Bronte lore, says Mrs. Trevelyan. that Lucy Snowe's first friend in the wilderness of "yillette" is no other than the young publisher. Therefore some of the let ters placed at Mrs. Wards disposal by George Smith aroused her curiosity, and, taking her courage in both hands, she boldly asked him whether he had ever been in love with Charlotte Bronte. His reply was as follows:
 My Dear Mrs. Humphfy Ward: Tam amused at your questions. No, never was in the least in love with Charlotte Bronte. I am afraid that the confes- sion will not raise me in your opinion, but the truth is I never. could have loved any woman who had not some charm or grace of person, and Char s.& III WIS interested by her, and admired her-especially when she was in York shire and I was in LoAdoh. never was coxcomb enough to suppose that she was in love with me-. But I be- We've that my mother was at one time >ther alarmed"
 The Seeming Truth.
 It has been the fashion for posterity tn akx.a fI,n idealize Charlotte and to endow her with a charm at least equal to the charm of her own Jane Eyre, says The New York Herald. But. in George Smiths letter we have what seems to be the blunt truth. Her earliest sen- timental affairs, and perhaps the great love affair of her life, was her passion for M. Hegel when she was a school girl in Brussels. He was middle aged school teacher, very respectable, very much married, and the attach ment of the English ''mees" frightened him and bored him unutterably. When Charlotte eventually married, late in life and a short time before her death, romance was pretty well burned out.
 Charlotte Bronte's case is typical of many of the writers of the Victorian period. Petrarchs and Lauras, Dantes and Beatrices did not seem to abound among the literary subjects of the good queen. When their marriages were not downright honest they were exceedingly commonplace.
 There was no "Locksley HalI' fervor about Tennyson as a husband. He seems to have regarded his wife as a more or less indispensable piece of household furniture. The marriage of the Brownings is regarded as romance. but Home, the medium, whom Brown ing satirized as "Sludge," always main tained that the real cause of Brown ing's resentment was that once when he (Home) was asked to name the greatest living poet he had named Elizabeth instead of Robert.
 Thackeray's marriage was undoubt- edly a love match and a very pretty one, but it was quickly darkened by the tragic mental affliction which be- fell his wife and which made him prac- tically a widower until the end of his days. The story. of Dickens married life is one of almost continual squab7- bles, although the husband and wife endured each other for 30 years before deciding upon definite separation. Dickens showed the best side of his nature when he wrote to John Forster as follows: 'a
 Poor Catherine and I are not made for each other, and there is no help for it. It is not only that she makes me uneasy and unhappy, but that I make her so, too-and much more so. She is exactly what you know in the way of being amiable and complying; but we are strangely ill assorted for the bond there is between us. God knows she would have been a thousand times happier if she had married another kind of man, and that her avoidance of her destiny would have been at least equally good for us both. Her temperament will not go with mine. It mattered not so much when we. had only ourselves to consider, but reasons have been growing since which make it all but hopeless that we could ever try to struggle on."
 His Worst Side.
 He showed the worst side of his na- ture when he actually published a statement of his domestic troubles in his magazine, Household Words. That was against the bitter protest of his best friends, but his egotism; would not be baked. It was on a par with his burlesquing his own mother as Mrs. Nickleby and his father as Wilkins Mi cawber. He was not contented with printing his statement in Household Words. He wanted it to appear in Punch, and he broke off all personal intercourse with the editors because they naturally refused his astonishing request. N
 But of all the grotesque marriages of literary Fictorians that of Bnlwer-Lyt- fr,p, happy tragedy of it thefeNis an tfnde- niable comic twist. When Bulwer-Lyt- ton first met Miss Rosina Wheeler he was one of the greatest dandies of his day. His golden hair was worn long and curled in ringlets that fell upon his shoulders. Even more amazing than his appearance were his love letters. He addressed Miss Wheeler as "Poo- dle" and signed himself Puppy" or "Puppo" and expressed thousand inanities in the most preposterous baby talk.
 Then they were married and after a few years Poodle" developed into sulky, excitable wife, who told strang- CTS tales of her husband that were probably for the most part sheer in- vention. For example, six>years after the wedding she wrote an account of "a gross personal outrage" which ended:
 ''He then dropped thessSknife and, springing on me, made his great teeth meet in my cheek and the blood spurted over me. Tie agong was 50 great that my screams brought the servants back, and presently Cresson. the cook, seized him by the collar; but he broke from him and, seizing one of the footmens hats in the hall, rushed down Pica- dilly."
 A "Trip" For WiIkie Collins.
 A sequel of years long after. Wilkie Collins "The Woman iu White" as a