FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75  
76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   >>   >|  
ns me sufficient domestic cares; for my works shall be my children." The wives of Dante, Milton, Dryden, Addison, and Steele shed no glory on the sex, and brought no peace to their firesides. The list of "unhappily married" is large and brilliant. It includes William Beckford, the author of "Vathek," who, however, does not seem to have deserved a happy life, and whose enormous fortune and great talents were alike wasted. Lord Lytton was also unhappily, though romantically, married, and a large part, at least, of the subsequent misery was due to his temper and conduct. But perhaps full justice has not been done to the ill effects of the long and hard struggle with poverty, which he maintained with such success, but with such constant labor, during many years. The temperaments of Charles Dickens and his wife were so different that they lived apart for several years preceding the great novelist's death. Lord and Lady Byron separated about a year after their marriage, and they never met again. Sir Henry Irving and his wife spent the last years of their married life in separate homes. Haydn's marriage was unhappy. In 1758 the young composer had, after great struggles, got so far as to obtain a musical directorship with Count Morzin, and settled in Vienna. His salary was only two hundred florins, but he had board and lodging free. Many pupils came to him, and among others two daughters of the hairdresser Keller. Haydn fell deeply in love with the younger, but his affection was not returned, for she entered a convent and became a nun. Father Keller, who was very familiar with Haydn and had helped him oftentimes with small loans in his early struggles, persuaded the young composer to marry his elder daughter, and the marriage, after awhile, was celebrated November 26, 1760. Maria Anna was, however, no wife for Joseph Haydn. She was extravagant, bigoted, scolded all day, and was utterly uncompanionable to a musician. Finally she became so bad that she only did what she thought would annoy her husband. She dressed in a fashion quite unsuited to her position, invited clerical men to her table, tore Haydn's written musical scores and made curl-papers of them, etc., and yet the great composer bore it all as well as he could. In one letter he says: "My wife is mostly sick, and is always in a bad temper. It is the same to her whether her husband is a shoemaker or an artist." After he had suffered this stat
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75  
76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

married

 

composer

 
marriage
 

husband

 

struggles

 
musical
 

Keller

 

temper

 

unhappily

 

younger


affection
 

returned

 
deeply
 

entered

 

letter

 

Father

 

familiar

 
convent
 

daughters

 

lodging


artist

 
florins
 

suffered

 

salary

 

hundred

 
helped
 

shoemaker

 
pupils
 
hairdresser
 

thought


Finally
 

uncompanionable

 

musician

 

scores

 

unsuited

 

position

 
invited
 

written

 

dressed

 

fashion


utterly

 

daughter

 

awhile

 
persuaded
 
clerical
 

celebrated

 

extravagant

 

bigoted

 

scolded

 

papers