FAMOUS UNMARRIED MEN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 64, 10 April 1909, Page 3

FAMOUS UNMARRIED MEN.

I Bacon says that "certainly the best works and those of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from unmarried or childless men. 1 ' Schopenhauer, the German philosopher, appears to be of the same opinion: "For men Ol higlu'r intellectual avocation, for poets, philosophers, for all those in general who devote themselves to science and art, celibacy is preferable to married life, because the conjugal yoke prevent* them, from creating great works." .Moore has expressed the same belief, asserting that in looking back through the liven of the most illustrious poets it is evident that they have been, with scarcely any exception, "restless and solitary spirits, with minds wrapped up, like silkworms, in their own tasks,, cither strangers or rebels to the domestic tie."

' Dante. Milton, Shakespeare, and Dryden are instance* of the xaddenhig rVl'ect of married life upon poets. Dante went through life away from his wife and children, nursing his mind in the imaivortul dream ot Beatrice. Theve is that oft-told jest of Dryden. which sulliciently exhibits his view of the subject.; when'his wife told him that she wished fche wpro a book in order that, she might have more of her ihuwband's companionship, he *aid, "Be an almanac, my love, so thnt I can rhiuipv you every year." Scott's remark about Drvden was, that "on no occasion when a sarcasm against matrinroip' would be introduced has he failed to kcH'-'iu H with such bit* itcrness as *poke of an inwaid conscious- | n'ess of domestic misery." But the same is true of other artists as well—of musicians and painters as well a« poets. I "Wagner, wVn a young man, married lan artr"ss, "pretty as a picture," but I she appears to have hail but little fiym.palhV' with his ainw, and he lived apart ■from her. He afterwards married a I daughter of Liszt, who did appreciate' his genius, and "with her lie was vei\ \ lumpy. . , . , The girl whom Haydn married turned out n shrew. Berlioz V could find her, Hip Juliet. tin' Opliflia thnt mv heart ™lls I?- t''» 1 .'"V 1 ' drink in the Intoxication of mingled iov and sadness that onlv true love how could T lint rest w tor arms imo autumn evening. rooked by t.K' north wind on some wild lu-ntli. and slopTiinp; my lust sad sleep. We nrc told tliat ft iew years and I these effusions wore written lie nyrnnawl !an amicable wparntlon from Insj in. liis former divinity. and ' ,O die in misery and solitude. Handel was never in love, and had . aversion to marriage.