LOVE AFFAIRS OF GENIUS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13235, 21 July 1906, Page 5 (Supplement)

LOVE AFFAIRS OF GENIUS.

ART. LITERATURE, AND MUSIC, i It is natural that the men who, by the exercise of their genius, have appealed most •poignantly to human feelings should themselves have been swayed to a remarkable do: dree by human passion. That is one of the penalties of the artistic temperament. The genius of men in the provinces of art or literature or music seems often to have been accompanied by • a genius for falling in : love. , So it is that the strange affairs of , the heart of men of genius are far and away too numerous for treatment, even in the briefest manner, in one snort article. We deal with a few only, taking as a first instance Beethoven, the impetuous, heated " tone poet." Beethoven was never maimed, but he was almost always in love, making conquests where most; men would have found it difficut to obtain a hearing. He was an admir- j er of noble, chaste beauty, and it is a noteworthy fact that almost all the ladies in whom he became interested were among the : highest of the land. He did not care for teaching, but that did not prevent his becoming warmly attached to at least two of his lady pupils, om*. the Countess Keglevics : and the other the Countess Julio de Guicciardi, to the latter of whom he dedicated

and ino otner in© oountess «juuo tie uuiccurdi, to the latter of. whom he dedicated his enchanting " Moonlight" sonata. When the respective fathers discovered the attachments they took steps to break them ■'". ,[ . off, which was not difficult in days when musicians were not always treated with the ■- ~', respect they deserved and, now more- often :-■ - receive. Beethoven's passion for Lady D'oro-

p:vf;' v': thea Ertmann does not.seem to have lasted ;' •'-,.'. long, and the real love of his life, the one i which almost ended happily, was that for Countess Therese do Brunswick, to whom he became engaged to be married. >: Her v';'-.'.i' brother, Count Franz,, was a friend of Bee- ;■ thoven's, but he began to waver at the S;: thought of having the musician as a brother, and it was through his influence that the projected- marriage was broken off. P f Among; the sonatas dedicated to the\lady named was the glorious " Appasionata."'; MUSICAL LOVE DIALOGUES. ; Schubert, the poor, unrecognised, arid ■ ; .'■ physically insignificant composer) was inspired with a lifelong passion by a girl .pupil scarcely in her —Marie, the : . 4 "• daughter of Count Esterhazy.. She derived no small amount of amusement from his in-' ",, ". fatuation, and,- worse still, when , her father , found how matters stood he dismissed Schu- |; bert minus his fee. A more happy result attended the love-making .'of Schumann, •;. whose attachment to the wonderfully; clever daughter of his pianoforte' master, ; Wieck, , was returned. The course of true love runs > - not smooth. ,In this case Wieck pere enter"'V ■'tained strong objections to the "affaire," ;- and the .young people, were compelled to ■ resort to musical dialogues. That'is ; how they conducted their love-making. One v' .day Schumann made a musical proposal of I marriage, and then Clara took her seat 'at •., - • the piano and answered him in the affirmai| tive. Ultimately they were married with"V. . out papa's consent, , although later Wieck - 1 ' ;' was reconciled to them. ■ ~ . ENOUGH OF MUSICIANS. \KT a , n ;„i.t „, Q „*;«,i e* „,.;„,. .._„.,„]. ..., J

We might mention other stories— a: that of Berlioz, who was smitten with the -■ * charms of Miss Smithson, ; whom After a, '' fierce courtship he married—hut we will. go on to refer to the love . affairs of meii of other types of genius. Goethe, like Bee- ;; ' thoven, seemed; perpetually to be in? love. -;■.. First of all he became a. victim to a girl considerably older than.he. Most boys do that, by the way—which is * another story. ■ •;. 'In the set which included Goetho was .a

f-'J.J' young, man named Wolfgaiug, and" ho arid his sister Gretchen, with Goethe, one night found themselves at a late hour in 'a public place: of amusement....They were used to that sort of, thing, but on this particular night, unfortunately, Wolfgang found that ho had lost his key. As there was no means cj; of getting into his home without letting his parents know of his "carryings on" he decided to stay out all night with his sister and'Goethe.'"So they spentthe night-'in' : r pleasure.' - It Was next morning, when Goe- ''/', ~ the opened his eyes after a doze, that he saw Gretchen arranging the coils of her pretty hair, and was struck with .her charms; as never before. Thereafter he was her dci ■ voted lover, until a time came when, dur- - ing a police inquiry into the methods and manners'of the coterie to which Goethe and Wolfgang belonged, the lady, who had ' . wrongly been accused of forgery, said she ' had never looked on Goethe as other than.a t ' ' foolish boy. So that affadr was settled. '■ Goethe's pxtrtheb amoues. * ■ Katherine Schonkopf, daughter of a Leip- ■ . sic innkeeper, was another "flame," but gradually Goethe's ardoirr cooled, and his affections were < engaged' elsewhere. The daughter, of a Strasbourg dancing-master— her name- was Emilia—entertained an over- .. , whelming passion for- Goethe, who rather fancied her, sister Lucinda. This led to- quarrels -between the sisters, sometimes in the ;: amatory young German's presence, and on one occasion, while Goethe was conversing with Lucinda, the lovelorn Emilia suddenly, rushed upon him, crying that her sister should not be the only one to bid l 'him farewell, and seized the object of her affections . by the hair, then pressed her head to his cheek, and invoked curses on her who from ■;':■'■■.. that time should kiss his lips'. / Goethe fell in and out of love with Frederika, the daughter of a poor pastor. jind his conduct in the. matter was rather shabby. : So it was, too, in regard to Charlotte Buff.' who was- the affianced of Gothe's friend .'? >. Kestner. In " Werthei" Goethe caricatured his friend, for whose, promised bride he r . ■ ' had openly avowed affection, but he got . ; into trouble over this, arid had to manifest his repentance. Again his love died. It •■ : languished in the case of Anna, Sehouemann, :' t of "Mi," of the Baroness von Stein also. '-'•';,' V Finally Goetho married Christiane Vulpius 'this love story was but a squalid one— -,' and he grieved, we are told, when she ' ' ..'' died. ' : A PAT-VTEE, AND A POET. It was a curious story, that of the love ■ affair of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The paint- ." ■; " cv married a girl who had posed as model '.'«'• . for him, and was completely in love with her. Sho died from an overdose of lauda- , num, Avhich: she took, in order to obtain ''{';'!'■; '■'{• i relief from neuralgia, from which, in addition to consumption, she was a great suf- ,!? . ferer. At her death Rossetti placed the -. '■;-- manuscript o 1 his Unpublished poems with ' her in the coffin, having a fancy thwt they should ,be buried with the one who had -aspired them. , Years afterwards he chang- « ' , ed his mind, and an order was obtained for :}' the exhumation of the body. In that way •;- • the poems were recovered. Truly a strange ;■ affair, but one into which we. need not .hero go further. The love story of the poet Keats was a ' sad one. He was about twenty years. ,' • of age when he first fell victim "to the arrow of Cupid. In one of his letters he said, "I never was in love, yet the voice and - shape of a, woman has haunted me. these two days; at such a time when the relief, the feverish relief of poetry seems - a ' '~' ,' much less crime. This morning , poetry has conquered; I have relapsed into those .',,' abstractions which are my only life; I '' E feel escaped from a new, strange, and threatening sorrow,, and I am thankful for •■"- . it. There is an awful warmth about my ~ heart, like a load of immortality." The ', \ l . . passion here, suggested, however, was but ' / transitory, for the object of it— Miss ,\ . . Cox— no more his enslaver when Fanny I Brawne appeared on the scene. i She was I only seventeen, but, after first regarding her I with mixed la.vour and dislike, Keats suc-1 cumbed entirely to what he thought her ','■:''.} .;charms: They became engaged, and there- ;■■..- after the pootliyed in a torment of jealousy. : Finny was somewhat of a flirt, and Keats' j '.!' passion for her was engrossing, causing him! to go to live next door to the house of > 1 the Brawnes, amd, while he was ill, to keep up a constant interchange of notes with the 1 '"' r object of his affection. Some of his letters i wero of the most deeply despairing characL,! ter. Because ol: his bad health and poor ;'V/ ' prospects marriage was out of the question. I,;' \. ; ' • Seats was nursed first by one friend then ['-■''•/, by another, and at last, before he wont Ip'.'f i- '.!>'> Italy, by Mrs. Br.ivnc and her daughter. pfe';::'Kedied abroad; and Fanny was said to have .>•-* ,' bean "very much affected" by the news " because she s treated him so badly." PSfe'/ , * ™': DROW ™ GS - * , wMK ft-' has been said that the love ..story of p|w^.^ e Brownings was one of the mest interest: SHip ; :-'* n -- aa -- i'oinautio relations between a man

] and .woman of genius which the history of literature presents to us. Before her mar- ! wage Mrs. „ Browning was . a Miss Barrett,.; tho invalid ;. daughter of a strangely - selfish I man,. who was possessed of an idea that the i lives of his child should be ; devoted en-" j tirely to him. He was a- thoroughgoing tyrant. He forbade his daughter to think of marriage, and. to a great extent because 1 «he was kept in the house, Miss Barrett was : in a constant state of weakness and ill- : health. When: Browning first saw ■ her she lay on a sofa in a partly-darkened room, and " instantly inspired him. with a- passion-, ai« admiration." Prior to this, however, they had corresponded.- i, Miss" Barrett was a poet who had; at that time achieved a fame which was greater, than Browning's, arid she was a great admirer of the latter's poems. He read, her poems, and at once wrote to her., in his very first note stating, "I love your hooks, and I love you too." She " replied rather more guardedly, > but it was a very short time before their letters made them lovers. After that first meeting, to which reference has been made, they corresponded fully, ; letters instinct with noble thought and passion: following each other : with remarkable rapidity. It was obvious that the life of the invalid depended on her getting away from her father's house. Persistently did Browning attempt to persuade her to escape from it with: him. He saw her, unknown to her father, three times a week, but it was long ere she acceded to his wishes. After about sixteen ; months of this' strange courtship Browning gained his. point, and on September 12, 1845. the two were quietly and privately married. Mrs. Browning ; returned to her father's house, but a week later she rejoined her husband, and went with him to Italy. Her father never forgave them, but the. Brownings lived, through, sixteen • years of almost ; unclouded marital happiness. -