Great Minds and Matrimony.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4916, 11 October 1884, Page 1

Great Minds and Matrimony.

Everybody knows what were Dean Swift's opiuions on the subject of matrimon}—how ho loved and tortured Stella, while the other woman whose name he 'has made famous in a way died of bis i cruelty—to have him write beautifully about her affer that evci.t. Upon which the victorious rival said smilingly, " That does not surprise me, for we all know the Dean could write beautifully about a broomstick!" If it could be possible for that miserable, cynical soul to love any* thing human, Swift loved his Stella ; the lock of her hair which he preserved— "only a woman's hair"—-the charming lines he wrote about her—the brief but touching records he makes of her character aud attainments—all show how deeply n sense of her tenderness and fidelity was impressed on his mind. But it was not well to show too plainly an allegiance toward the Dean: it meant a degree of weakness in his eyes which he never failed to take advantage of—a brutal advantage sometimes. It was perhaps his own in* capability of returning an honest, sincere, cotnmon-seme sll'eciiuu, which made him. so fond of steering st love and lovers, marriage and married folks. The follow-

ing lines perhaps not «s old fashioned in sentiment as in expression, contain a contemptuous allusion to (he ease and brevity witjh which courtships were conducted iv hia day:— Two or tb^ee deora and two or three eweets, Two or tree balls and two or three treats, Two or three serenad s given as a lure, Two or three oaths (how 'much they endure!) Two or. three messages sent, in one duy, Two.or three times led out- from the'piny, ■ Two or three eofc speeches made by the way, Two v or three tickets for tw<* or three times', Two +or three love,Jettflrs writ all in rhymes, Two or three months keeping strict, to these rules ; Can nerer fail making a couple of fools ! Lord Byron's conjugal difficulties bare interested thousands who perhaps never read five lines of his poetry. He did not inherit a teudency towards domestic affection or marital happiness. Hia mother, hia father's second wife, was aa heiresi, whose fortune very conveniently paid her husband's debts, but did not purchase hia liking. His grand uncle in a fit of passion threw his wife into the pond at iVewstead on one^oceaaion. " All the kind of the Launces had Chis fault "-— viz., bad temper. " I never see anyone much improved by matrimony," remarks the- poet contemptuously, "ia his journal.. In another place, however, he: declares that a wife should be his " salvation,*'- but "doubtshis temper," as well,lie might. " Let me be married out of hand,; I caie not to whom," he writes ,<to fern Moore. Again, " They say one shouldn't be married in a black coat, I won't have a blua one—that's flat I I hate it! " While sincerely agreeing with the uoble lord's taste in regard to the fashion "of his'day, wo confess ourselves unable to find any elevation in his sentiments respecting matrimony—youthful or mature. In fact < Byron''S imfitness for the monotony oi' domestic life seems to have bpen the results of his imperfections as a: sufficiently commonplace man rather than a eouse-

quenceof bis genius aud irritability as a poet. Leigh Hunt was apparently happy in his queer household, where the proverb of .** living from hand to' mouth '" seems to have been practically the mode of existence. His wife was perhaps more distinctly an example of the " Skimpole " type than he himself, and the glimpse we get of the lady's style of housekeeping in some of Mrs Carlyle's letters is sufficiently amusing. Mrs Hunt borrowed continuously and forgot to return with as much fluency—the list of articles including teacups, glasses, spoons, a little porridge, a pinch of tea. and, strangest ©f all, a brass fender, which Mrs Carlyle had great difficulty in getting back again. Carlyle himself in a few vivid words sketches the interior of the "family room," wherein he finds "a sickly large wife and a whole shoal of well conditioned wild children, . . . half a dozen oid rickety chairs, . . . all seemingly engaged and just pausing in a violent hornpipe. On these and around them and around them and over the dusty table and jagged carpet lie all kinds of litter— books, papers, egg shells, scissors, and last night was there, jthe torn heart of a half quartern loaf.-'* This is certainly not an engaging picture of a .literary interior ; but it in possible for the domestic affections to flourish in such soil, as they seem to hare done in the Hunt household.

It is difficult to conclude our consideration of the subject in band without an allusion to the Carlyles, whose married life has been so mercilessly dissected ever since Mr Froude expressed with a degree of warmth somewhat ill-advised perhaps under the circumstances, his extreme •ympatby with the lady. Everyone must admire Mrs Carlyle's faithfulness to her husband's interests, appreciation of his genius, cheerfulness under difficulties, and exceptional talents; yet it cannot be denied that she had fair and liberal warning as to the nature of the man she was to marry. His poverty, his abstraction of mind, the harshness and brusquerie that formed part of his character, were'all laid plainly before her. Besides, has a woman who confessedly marries for ambition a right to expect anything more than the aatisfying of that ambition ? Had Mrs Carlyle married a man of more ordinary type of mind, as she might have done, she might have obtained all the admiration, appreciation, affection, for which, womanlike, she longed when it was too late. Carlyle honestly believed in his wife's affection for him, and consequently thought that bo solitude, no privation, which they shared together, could make her unhappy. It seems that he was mistaken, as men are liable to be where a woman's heart is concerned, and to that mistake he was cruelly awakened after her death. The time may come, perhaps, when Mrs Carlyle will be envied rather than pitied that her name should go down to posterity linked with that of Thomas Carlyle rather than lost in oblivion as the wife of an easier tempered but more insignificant individual. —Lippincott's Magazine.