An aside: Byron and Shelley’s influence on Wilson and Gladstone

My last piece, on Benjamin Disraeli’s novel Venetia, led me to look into Woodrow Wilson and William Gladstone’s thoughts on the Romantic poets Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley, the subject of that novel. The result inspired a few thoughts on why Disraeli felt the need to “domesticate” Byron and Shelley, as I argued in that essay that he does: A notion of genius which frightened the Victorians but to which Wilson and Gladstone appear to have personally related.

This aside makes the case that by the late 19^th century, Romantic genius had been reconceived as emotional instability, and that Wilson and arguably even Gladstone (neither one of whom one would expect to see themselves in the Romantics) absorbed this concept as a way of understanding themselves.

The first impetus for this aside is a long love letter Wilson wrote to his wife from Baltimore, Maryland, where he was getting a PhD in government studies, on November 22, 1884. The letter ruminates on what Wilson calls “the intellectual marriage,” a phrase he picked up from Philip Hamerton’s book The Intellectual Life. Wilson uses Shelley’s first marriage as the prime example of the intellectual marriage phenomenon. 

It’s difficult to cut, and a great read, so below is the full letter. In it, Wilson tells his then-fiancée Ellen Axson about something he read in an essay about Percy Bysshe Shelley by one of his heroes, the economist, government theorist, and man of letters Walter Bagehot. The passage he quotes is about Shelley’s disastrous first marriage with Harriet Westbrook, whom he abandoned because he did not believe in living with someone with whom one was not in love. Westbrook ultimately committed suicide, and Shelley went on to marry Mary Godwin, the eventual author of Frankenstein. Wilson muses on the difficulty of finding a soul mate for a genius like Shelley, explains that he relates to that quandary, and celebrates his happiness in finding Ellen.

“My own darling,

“Here is an extract I have just hit upon and which I know you will appreciate and enjoy, as a supplement to certain chapters in Hamerton's Intellectual Life which you will doubtless recall. This is more vivacious than Hamerton because it is from an essay on Shelley by my master, Bagehot--the most vivacious, the most racily real of writers on life--whether the life be political, social, or separately intellectual. Of the first Mrs. Shelley he says:

‘We should conclude that she was capable of making many people happy, though not of making Shelley happy. There is an ordinance of nature at which men of genius are perpetually fretting, but which does more good than many laws of the universe which they praise: it is that ordinary women ordinarily prefer ordinary men. 'Genius,' as Hazlitt would have put it, 'puts them out.’ It is so strange; it does not come into the room as usual; it says 'such things'; once it forgot to brush its hair. The common female mind prefers usual tastes, settled manners, customary conversation, defined and practical pursuits. It is a great good that it should be so. Nature has no wiser instinct. The average woman suits the average man; good health, easy cheerfulness, common charms, suffice. If Miss Westbrook had married an everyday person--a gentleman, suppose, in the tallow line--she would have been happy, and have made him happy. Her mind could have understood his life; her society would have been a gentle relief from un-odoriferous pursuits. She had nothing in common with Shelley &c.’

“This is a long quotation to burden a short letter with, but I know that you will not begrudge it the space. This is the only way in which I can even come near to realizing the luxury of carrying the best, most suggestive, passages of my favourite authors to my best loved companion. Of course the explanation of Shelley's mistake in this unfortunate marriage is simple. Mistake was inevitable when he chose to marry a girl because her beauty had won his fanciful love at first sight, and because her name was Harriett--a name of tender associations with him because it was borne by a cousin whom he had loved but whom he had lost-to another man! When a man marries off-hand he can't count on anything as certain, except extreme danger. It's like dying offhand and blindly running the chances as to climate in the next world. But to marry thus is just what the man of genius--especially if his nature drives him in straight lines of simple impulse, as Shelley's nature did him--is exceedingly likely to do, and his only protection is to be found in the rule which Bagehot points out: that an essentially ordinary woman is not likely to want him!

“‘Some eccentric men of genius have, indeed,’ continues Bagehot, "felt in the habitual tact and serene nothingness of ordinary women a kind of trust and calm. They have admired an instinct of the world which they have not—a repose of mind they could not share. But this is commonly in later years. A boy of twenty thinks he knows the world; he is too proud and happy in his own eager shifting thoughts, to wish to contrast them with repose. The commonplaceness of life goads him: placid society irritates him. Bread is an encumbrance; upholstery tedious; he craves excitement; he wishes to reform mankind. You cannot convince him it is right to sew, in a world so full of sorrow and evil.’

“This is obviously a fair description of the state of mind of most boys of twenty, those without genius as well as those with--so they be ever so little awake to intellectual interests. The problem of choosing a life-companion is, therefore, a serious one for everybody out of the 'tallow line," though there's more tragedy in it for the genius than for lesser folk. Perhaps it is fortunate for the race that there are so few geniuses in it. The average man would be monstrously uncomfortable if the wife of his bosom were of this rare make--no less uncomfortable, I take it, than a woman would be at the incomings and outgoings of a husband who was afflicted with the disease of being unlike anybody else she had ever known or heard of, and consequently altogether hopelessly unaccountable. The frequent mistakes that are made, by the wrong matching of less extraordinary people, are probably due to the fact that intellectual young men--even more than intellectual young women--see very little of general society; are kept apart until they reach the most susceptible age, and then thrown into associations which ensure their falling in love with the first pretty woman they meet. The boy who from the first is free to live with the other sex and is not taken from them for any long seclusion in school or college cloisters, has much the best chance to make a safe marriage. There ought not to be any great difficulty in the choice for anybody, one is inclined to think. Is not everyone more sensitive to the faults of those whom they love than to the faults of others? Apparently the fault-finding faculties are sharpened rather than dulled by love.

“I remember the time, Eileen, when I read Hamerton's chapters on marriage as affecting the intellectual life with great disquietude. I was oppressed by all the possibilities of mistake, somewhat terrified by the impossibility of any provident provision against danger. I knew the strength of my own impulses--the power of love that was in me, the ruling power of my nature--and I realized that mistake was ruin, happy choice, salvation. Everything depended on the selection I should be allowed to make. Is there any wonder, then, darling, in the fact that I am now so happy? Hasn't a man a right to feel happy who knows that his heart's fortune is made! We have been very fortunate, my little queen. We have had unusual opportunities for gaining experience in each other's dispositions, for reading each other's hearts. Everything that has happened since that blessed 16th of September [the day of their engagement] has gone to make it impossible that there should ever be any realization of the sweet, unselfish, puzzling, baffling fear that day urged by the lips I that day kissed. I did not know my darling then as I know her now: but my later knowledge of her has proved nothing but that she is what I then thought her. And the little lady who wrote the letter which I received this morning must surely be satisfied with her part in the bargain. You wouldn't dare, Miss, to talk to me thus, as you write! There's no telling what I wouldn't do. Kisses and caresses would stop the sweet words from coming: I wouldn't for the world stop them, they are too precious! and yet how could I keep from taking you in my arms and overwhelming you with kisses? Will you try the experiment next time I see you--just to test my self-restraint? I would make almost any sacrifice to hear my shy little sweetheart talk that way--to have her tempt me both with words and with those precious looks of love and confidence! It would be worth any number of weeks of this tedious hermit life. My darling! 1 wonder if you have any conception of the joy your love gives me--of the gayety of spirit with which I look forward to the time when you shall be mine, by the law of the land as well as by the law. … With all the love of all my heart,
Your own
Woodrow.

-        From The Papers of Woodrow Wilson Volume 3, beginning on page 471. The indentation of the quotes from Bagehot is mine.

This letter shows that the attitude about genius that inspired Venetia in 1837 was still going strong in 1884. Dino Franco Falluga in his 2005 book The Perversity of Poetry argues that Lord Byron’s genius was attacked by disease in part as a way of putting down the threat of his radicalism politically. In my blog post on Venetia this week, I follow the thinking of Falluga and his collaborator Emily Allen in their 2024 book Novel-Poetry that Disraeli was attempting a similar maneuver by fictionalizing the story of Byron and his lost love Mary Chaworth, a cousin he fell in love with as a child. Disraeli by centralizing her story, I argued, was preparing for a new parliamentary career as a Tory.

In Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, Kay Redfield Jamison shows how Byron embraced the pathologization of genius himself (as Falluga argues he did):

“Lady Byron, who ultimately sued Byron for separation on the grounds that he was insane, wrote: "The day after my marriage he said, You were determined not to marry a man in whose family there was insanity? have done very well indeed,' or some ironical expression to that effect, followed by the information that his maternal grandfather had committed suicide, and a Cousin... had been mad, & set fire to a house.”

While Byron may have found the image of “madness” helpful for his reputation as a poet, Disraeli knew his reputation as a politician was another matter.

Wilson in this 1880 letter does not go so far as to argue that the genius is insane, but he comes close, arguing that the genius is impulsive. Wilson confesses he was unnerved by what Hamerton had to say about “marriage as affecting the intellectual life.” “I was oppressed by all the possibilities of mistake, somewhat terrified by the impossibility of any provident provision against danger,” Wilson writes. “I knew the strength of my own impulses--the power of love that was in me, the ruling power of my nature--and I realized that mistake was ruin, happy choice, salvation. Everything depended on the selection I should be allowed to make.”

Here is a brief, telling passage of Hamerton’s book, which caused Wilson to freak out about what Philip Gilbert Hamerton’s:

“This difficulty of finding the true mate is the real reason why so many clever men marry silly or stupid women. The women about them seem to be all very much alike, mentally; it seems hopeless to expect any real companionship, and the clever men are decided by the color of a girl’s eyes, or a thousand pounds more in her dowry, or her relationship to a peer of the realm.”

This is just the logic Wilson uses to psychoanalyze Shelley in his letter: “Mistake was inevitable when he chose to marry a girl because her beauty had won his fanciful love at first sight.”

When Wilson’s fiancée writes him back, she teases him slightly for regarding himself as “extraordinary.” She very subtly points out, I think, the sexism in Bagehot’s characterization of the ordinary woman. She refers to Bagehot’s view of male genius mockingly (“the poor helpless man of genius,” she calls him).  Here is Ellen’s response:

“Many thanks also for the very interesting and suggestive passages from Bagehot. I would like to read the essay on Shelley, both to obtain in full his very sensible views on "the intellectual marriage," and also to see what he has to say in defense of Shelley for it would seem to be to some extent an apology for him. What a very keen observer he--Bagehot--is! And what a very fortunate thing it is for the world that it is so largely regulated by the law he points out; a most natural law too,-for everybody knows that "birds of a feather flock together"; and the rarer sort, of which there are not enough to make "flocks," dwell apart-to themselves. It is a cheering reflection, from one point of view, for it shows that the poor helpless men of genius are not utterly unprotected, after all. Yet it is, for me, a very uncomfortable reflection too, if it be absolutely essential to the happiness of an extraordinary man that his choice should be an extraordinary woman; but I won't tease you with such talk now, when it will do no good;-and after all I am not quite as "ordinary" as the type Mr. Bagehot describes, for she, it seems, is too essentially commonplace even to appreciate or understand anything above the average can and do love you, my darling, beyond the common.”

When reading Ellen’s carefully sarcastic response, I noticed again that Wilson had not called Ellen an intellectual or a genius in his initial letter. He reserves the description for himself, which is notable particularly when one realizes that Ellen at this moment in time is in New York City enrolled a prestigious art school learning to paint with talented New Yorkers. (Her landscape paintings are quite good.)

Does Wilson catch Ellen’s sarcasm? It would seem not. When he replies, he calls her a silly “little goose,” and while he complements her by saying she is not Bagehot’s “ordinary woman,” he once again reserves all implication of genius for himself:

“I think, my love, that I can safely agree to the proposition that you are ‘not quite as ordinary as the type Mr. Bagehot describes’! Oh, you dear, delightful, incorrigible little goose! Why will you persist in making me out an "extraorindary [sic] man"? If you won’t be convinced, I think that I can point out a way to comfort yourself by disproving your own inferiority. Since it is evident that you overestimate my abilities—it is at least demonstrable that you quite appreciate me. But no ordinary woman can appreciate an extraordinary man. Therefore you must be quite as extraordinary as I am! Q.E.D. Besides, my precious little sweetheart, there's no surer proof of the entire fitness of a woman for the man to whom she gives herself than that her love satisfies him. It's not the quantity alone, but quite as much the quality of love that makes it sufficient for the needs of the natures on which it is bestowed: and if your love is of the kind 1 want, then are you mine indeed, my darling, and we were meant to make each other happy. And you yourself will admit-wont you, little queen?--that your love for me is of that kind. I know that it is: because I know that it satisfies even my great, overmastering, tender love I say, what more complete demonstration could there be? May my Eileen feel identified with me? If she does--and I believe she does--she ought to put away these misgivings. Oh my darling, my darling! How shall I ever prove my love for you!”

Gladstone biographer HCG Matthew thinks one of Wilson’s heroes, William Ewart Gladstone, had also been influenced by Byron. This is counterintuitive, as Gladstone is known for being everything Byron is not: rigid, religious, even sanctimonious. In fact, on the web site of Gladstone’s personal library, the editors suggest he was too religious to like Lord Byron. They point out his library had an "R" section for Romantic poetry. But they say he was not a fan.

However Matthew thinks Gladstone was a fan, or at least he was just after he read Byron’s epic poem “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” in his younger years before he had met his wife. When earlier hopes for a different romance dissolved Gladstone wrote with what Matthew considers Byronic melancholy, saying, “The world outside me seems somehow dismantled now. Bitter things which have gone the wrong way for me because of the icy coldness of my heart,” and  “the daily sadness that is upon me in the midst of this painted life of inward trouble” and “I live almost perpetually restless & depressed.” Matthew says the tone is Byronic: “Childe Harold had offered a model of romantic restlessness to Gladstone's generation, and he read it as the fruitlessness of his suit of Caroline Farquhar began to be apparent.” If Matthew is right, Gladstone identified with Byron in much the same manner Wilson identified with Shelley.

Thus we get a small window into the impact of the Romantics on the two figures who have thus far been the major subjects of this blog besides Disraeli: Wilson and Gladstone. Wilson also copied out Shelley’s poems for his fiancee on occasion. One can overstate the Romantics’ influence; Wilson barely read Byron. While he did read “Childe Harold” in college, for some reason he only owned Canto Three. The only evidence that Byron made an impression is that Wilson copied out a section of Canto Three describing the Swiss Alps and noted in the margin that it was a good description of life in the mountains.

Still, as an aside, these are fascinating relics of the influence of Romanticism on multiple generations—first Gladstone and Disraeli, and then the younger Wilson.