GREAT MEN’S WIVES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXI, Issue VI, 6 August 1898, Page 176

GREAT MEN’S WIVES.

Wives of great men, as a rule, fail to secure their full share of domestic happiness, though it would be hard to assign any general reason for this not uncommon condition. An inquisitive magazine writer has recently been compiling some of the numerous examples which apparetatly prove the assertion first made. Leaving out the unhappily mated monarchs, who have but little choice in their partners, it is noted that a. quiet home life is exceptional among actors, and even literature presents a surprising lack ’of compatibility between husbands and wives. From Socrates to Dryden, Shakespere, Johnson, Addison, Milton, Moliere, Byron, Shelley, Dickens, Bulwer, George Sand, and George Eliot, each has had a share in household woes.

Generally the public will award its sympathy to the famous partner, without. seeking further, but it is often the case that the man who wins fame is apt to develop an abnormal sensitiveness, as if he stood on a higher pedestal than the smaller mortals, even in his own house. Then from them all he expects the uplifted, adoring eye and voice. As a rule, he does not receive this adulation at home. It ought to be considered a misfortune that the place for literary work is usually at home. Here a man cannot have the quiet, undisturbed sanctum, devoted only to the interests of his work, that the business man has in his office. Interruptions are apt to be constant. There is another reason for this domestic unhappiness that is only too common. The writer, if he is a literary man also, must grow in breadth of knowledge and ideas, while the wife, encircled by the small duties of holin', has little chance for growth, and is fortunate if she does not become even more narrow. Shakespeare outgrew his wife. Byron and Bulwer outgrew their wives, and, like ordinary egotists, resented the fact that they did not. hourly receive the praise they craved. Carlyle pranced ahead of his equally disappointed mate, but made bitter speeches because of her lack of speed.