| Show q t l r J J t f A l fin 1 pr l 1 f I- I V 7 I t C s fr 1 0 e CS i LOVE KILL GENIUS Women in r ti i f Cries the American Novelist Inez Haynes Irwin as cIt N 0 0 0 f t No fJ 0 She Takes Up the Cudgels With Wit the Hungarian r. r Mr and Mrs Will Irwin both n nationally known writers do doV donot V not find love iove love a handicap in their wooing of the muse Talent Flies Out the Window When Artist Aiji Who Asserts l. l t t i o II r J OMEN seldom become great The They may s start rt out with t W WOMEN W gifts equal to those of or men but they stop short just where at Mademoiselles P s Door 1 f Cupid Corpes Knocking a a in men en begin to because 1 because s they fall falz in r love It t was the voice of Philip A. A de Laszlo M III KO K 0 jarno famous s t Hungarian artist which pronounced this sad ob's observation anent the Ehe d demise ise talents talents' r. r premature rema ur n o of feminine tel Among my fellow students in Paris and Munich among among pupils today in London women are aret always always' shining ng lights D De Dc Laszlo continued They have an instinct t fo for or c color l r. r rt Thel They ev wo work k boldly y and delicately with the brush They are vels marvels of industry a. a y l v vAnd And yet once out o of the art class the they disappear With a nature 1 richer in imagination and emotion than that of man w woman still still seems ready to expend it all on personalities es I She falls falls in love love love- o y 1 All is over with her art f I Does love kill g genius in in women women J 0 1 f t fez fez- v t To get a woman loomans s view the question was put to Inez Haynes Irwin who in private life lie is Mrs Will Irwin Irwin- She Sh Shwas was recently 1 elected president of the Authors Authors' frs frs' Guild of tile the A Authors Le League g of oj i 1 Ill America Inc Since graduating from Radcliffe Co College lege she has h had had r d. d l I sixteen books books' published many ranking in the seller best class II f j a By y Inez Haynes Irwin resin ff t i Zi JIn J In an art Interview I. I 1 fi 0 DOES r OES OES love kill genius among women I M. M I r would answer answer No INo As a matter matter matter mat mat- ter of fact I cannot recall a single in instance in- in p sta stance e where that has happened i am talking about women of my own t generation generation and the present generation not about the women of my mothers mother's or ormy ormy my grandmothers grandmother's times I didn't know knows s these women intimately enough to discuss discuss discuss dis dis- cuss cuss them here Love is a a. very great thing it it-is it pis ds a tremendously thrilling thing it somei sometimes sometimes some some- i times inflicts horrible suffering Love j hasn't changed It is the same now y as it was in past ages ages just just as thrilling thrilling thrill thrill- d' d ing and just as devastating But the But the war cut a deep gash between 4 the woman of the past and her attitude toward love and life and the woman of 1925 You cant can't use the same hoar hoary old platitudes about women that were were r such pat cliches twenty years ago even even 7 I have seen only two generations of women women who have grown up my own ti and the subsequent one Even in that short space of time an extraordinary development in their attitude toward 1 love and life has taken place Formerly it was only man who in planning his life used the phrase complacently complacently com corn If I marry Women x hinged their whole future on When I marry Now the If I marry fl woman is here and she is here to stay Love isn't any longer the who whole e of womans woman's life life life-it it isn't isit 99 or 99 per cent It has a tremendously important part in J her existence just as it has in mans man's but it doesn't begin to be the whole y thing Her Her life is filled with h such a a num ber of things so social ial political comm commer commercial commer- commer rt r- r r t cial and r professional that she simply 4 f hasn't time to let love devastate it it Of course she suffers from an unhappy love e affair suffers dreadfully but she doesn't let it interfere with her other r affairs Men as a matt matter r of fact allow allowan an unhappy love affair to interfere more c y with their other affairs than women do 1 rn Ill I'll give you instances of this later on WHEN WHEN HEN we talk of women and this love business we must remember that love was an n economical problem in the old days A womans woman's oafs happiness depended entirely upon a happy and 41 prosperous marriage Today of course it is To get back back to to the effect of love on genius well as there is such a diversity 1 of opinion as to just what constitutes 1 genius well we'll discuss the effect of love and unhappy love affairs on persons who are especially gi gifted ted in in art writers l lOne actresses esses sculptors and so forth One immediately thinks of the terrible terrible terrible ter ter- tragedy which came into EI Eleanora Zi sy I. I Duse's life e through her love for Gabriele dAnnunzio That is an exceptional story however it is the most terrible love experience of our time The great tragedienne fell in love with witha a man man who in turn ex exploited plotted her in inthe inthe the dreadful manner which shocked the entire civilized world Duse's was a great vibrating sensitive soul extraordinarily extraordinarily attuned to respond to the heights L o of 01 happiness and the very depths of suffering ring m 4 When DAnnunzio published his book II Il Fiore The Fire the actress was t 35 years old oW She had before her a decade decade dec dec- bv ade in which she might have remained c at her prime She was beautiful and adored by two nations Her lover with i diab diabolical lical fidelity to truth described his mistress as seen seed seer Under tinder microscopic eyes each wrinkle and blemish was reproduced reproduced du d th the portrayal exhibited a nerve nerve- w r wS w'S scorched drained brain d emotion des creature creature-a a skeleton skeleton skeleton-a a husk An actress of coarser fiber might have used this book book bookas as valuable public publicity publicity pub pub- lic ty it blasted the exquisitely sensitive sensitive sensitive tive Duse DAnnunzio might just as aswell aswell aswell well have taken a match and set her skirts afire She crept aw away y into sion sion But this terrible experience e didn't kill her genius When she emerged years later it was vas finer n r subtler than ever She ap appeared eare on the stage without any S 4 F A J I lJ t up make-up frankly an an aging woman but w so b great was her 7 J f genius that everybody everybody everybody every- every M body marveled I Iwas Iwas Iwas was for fortunate tun ate enough to see her several everal times when she appeared in m America shortly before her death and although I couldn't understand understand understand under under- stand a word she was saying I like the rest of the audience was held enthralled by the magn magnetism of her hers personality and the wizardry of her acting NOW let us turn to the happy aspect of love on genius for a paragraph or so Consider Mme Schumann Schumann-Heink Mme Louise Homer Mme Curie Mary l Roberts Roberts' Rinehart Kathleen Norris Norris- just a 11 few well known women who are just as happy in in their love life and their husbands and children as they are in their careers The names of such women are legion They are not all Schumann- Schumann Heinks Homers and Curies of course but they are very highly gifted women whose love evidently has added to rather than detracted from their talents talent Gertrude Boyle Farquharson who does sculpture of the heroic type and has been compared to Rodin developed tremendously after her marriage She is is very much in love with her husband J 4 1 ri r- r f i t I i Irr I- I rr 4 A I r 11 1 I I 1 il II 1 f I Y r S S C CS S S v 1 k kI U r I I 0 1 y yf J 0 t 1 0 P ITI IT 0 0 f o I M 0 4 J k Y A. A Y h hI n r I l J 0 I o 0 i. i i iJ r f VY c S Se e Mrs Irwin Inez Haynes Irwin points many notable notable notable nota nota- ble examples to prove that love does not kill kiIl genius in women devel develop p and t that at has evidently helped to instead of cremating her talent Mr de Laszlo spoke of a young Frenchwoman who carried away the first studio in Paris Pans the prize at J Julien's liens lien's first year he was there when he be only received the second Nothing was ever heard of her again H He uses her as an example of wast wasted d talents yet there are many other things besides love which might have swallowed her up If one has genius or a genuine talent I dont don't believe that love could possibly kill it any more than the death of love would affect it detrimentally Emily Dickinson the famous New England poet had an unfortunate love affair in her early youth It was very brief but it seems to have had ad a devas devas' G ail tc At t One ne Time Time Maybe Maybe But These Days Never Days Never I T LavE OVE no longer is the whole of womans woman's life says Inez Haynes Irwin The damsel of yesteryear who had an unhappy love affair went into a decline but today the many ne new v interests that are women's blot out the sad affair Love is still indispensable to a womans woman's life and and wifehood and motherhood the supreme joys but when love le leaves ves it is no longer the cataclysmic tragedy of a womans woman's life Your modern girl is too robust in inspirit inspirit inspirit spirit to give up the game of life and the hope of a career because of one unfortunate love affair tating effect on her life life but but not her genius She lived the the life life of a hermit for years and from her seclusion came the exquisite poems which have placed her in the front rank Whether or not she would have produced these had her love affair been happy of course course is open to argument Miss Dickinson however was sh shut t away from the life of the modern woman She didn't have the distraction of the numerous engagements which force themselves upon the professional in a large city As a matter of fact a gift is a great safety valve Those who do not possess a creative gift of some sort suffer much more than the writer or artist or artiste Persons with gifts transmute the suffer suffer- ing into something thrilling and ful All art is revelation They have ave nothing to do with this it is subconscious Persons who do not possess this escape escape es cape try vainly to cover up the wound and forget about it But a sailor might just as well hammer down the hatches over a leak and then believe that his ship wont won't sink or a man may mayas as well close the door on a fire and hope h his s house wont won't burn down as a heartbroken lover may hope to smother the flames of an unhappy love affair by merely trying to forget about it itHe He has to deliberately turn his concentrated concentrated concentrated concen concen- attention to something else This is hard to do because he doesn't have havethe havethe havethe the substitute substitute substitute-or or the safety valve valve valve- possessed by the genius I have a friend who is a writer of very ery brilliant novels She spends so many hours each day dt t her typewriter Into her life two of these devastating unhappy loves have entered We all sympathized sincerely when the first up smash-up came also when the second followed shortly after However as soon as trouble showed on the horizon of the third she was told gently but firmly by her friends and acquaintances Now you'll just have to stay put or put up with it All the time these domestic upheavals were recurring this author kept turning out excellent work which received high praise from all the first-class first critics In the old days too divorce was taboo The divorcee was looked upon askance she was classed with the adventuresses In I the famous triangle stories and plays were two regular regula stamp rubber-stamp endings the happy ending where she became reconciled reconciled reconciled rec rec- to her brute of a husband the unhappy ending where she finished with witha a splash in the canals of Venice Yes women suffer suffer really really suffer all aU right They probably endure just as much torture over derelict heart affairs as the grandmothers and great grand mothers did but the girl and woman of today is too robust in spirit to give up the game of life life and and their careers careers so so easily t tAnd And even as they suffer they have evolved a canny conviction that theres there's just as many good fish in in the sea as there ever was I am not so feministic you see as to say the woman of today doesn't suf- suf I Love many assert is a 1 little imp who is jealous to the point of destruction of anything anything any any- I thing or anybody detracting attention n from him and his willful pranks I fer atrociously with heartbreak heartbreak they they do have their moments and instants of it but it-but but they dont don't believe in in being beaten and chased into a corner and switched to death by it Its It's awful not to be in love for love I agree plays an enormously important part in our lives But when love leaves us it doesn't leave an chasm behind it it isn't any longer the cataclysmic tragedy of a womans woman's life It is true that we haven't nearly so many really great architects or musicians musicians musicians mu mu- or artists among women as aa among men but in literature women as asa asa asa a whole surpass men women playwrights playwrights playwrights play play- wrights and women novelists in the front ranks surpass surpass the men Edith Wharton and Willa Cather Gather are considered considered considered consid consid- ered by many to be the l leading ading novelists America has ever produced With all this I believe that marriage with its concomitant motherhood is still womans woman's highest state state but but lets let's bury all this old tommyrot about love being womans woman's whole existence and about its asphyxiating effect on her talents Young men in love are likely to fall faIl to deep depths when they come up against a shocking betrayal or disappointment women are only flattened out tem tern But in none of these cases need it be a corroding influence especially to the talented writer AUTHORS A almost invariably Incorporate incorporate incorporate into their books something which is lacking in their lives The swashbuckler stories are often written by little neutral men and tender love stori stories s by those big he That is why you so often hear heal people exclaim You dont don't look a bit like your books For books are really usually unfulfilled unfulfilled filled dreams The characters reflect the ambitions or the rebellion of their authors This I think more or less applies to all the arts Now since as the French say il it y a qui manque theres there's always something lacking in our lives how could love or anything else kill this most valuable safety valve 1 which nature h has as provided in a favored Sew lew tew I have spoken at greater length on the he effects of unfortunate love affairs on ti genius or talent because it might be considered considered considered con con- more devastating But so far as the fine effect of happy l love ve affairs on genius is concerned you can read of that every day in the newspapers and the magazines Biographies are filled with It it Yes after all love is an awfully important important important im- im element in life life but but any way you look at it it is a developing developing not no j ja a destroying destroying force by II Publio Ledger CO Company r r |
