INFLUENCE OF MARRIAGE. 281 



genius. Yet when Sir Joshua Eeynolds himself a 

 bachelor met Flaxman shortly after his marriage, he 

 said to him, " So, Flaxman, I am told you are married ; if 

 so, sir, I tell you, you are ruined for an artist." Flaxman 

 went straight home, sat down beside his wife, took her 

 hand in his and said, " Ann, I am ruined for an artist." 

 " How so, John ? How has it happened ? " " It happened," 

 he replied, " in the church, and Ann Denman has done it." 

 He then told her of Sir Joshua's remark, whose opinion 

 was well known, and had often been expressed, that if 

 students would excel they must bring the whole powers of 

 their mind to bear upon their art, from the moment they 

 rise until they go to bed ; and also, that no man could 

 be a great artist unless he studied the grand works 

 of Kaffaelle, Michael Angelo, and others, at Rome and 

 Florence. " And I," said Flaxman, " I would be a great 

 artist." " And a great artist you shall be," said his wife, 

 " and visit Rome too, if that be really necessary to make 

 you great." " But how ? " asked Flaxman. " Work and 

 economise," rejoined the brave wife ; " I will never have 

 it said that Ann Denman ruined John Flaxman for an 

 artist."' 1 



It is a pleasure to record these examples of devoted- 

 ness of wives to the noble pursuits of their husbands, and 

 equally painful to remember that many other women 

 have, by their low and ignoble ideas or undisciplined 

 tempers, ignorantly retarded the self-improvement of their 

 husbands, and either compelled them to abandon original 

 research, or have shortened their lives whilst pursuing it. 

 Woe to the married and poor investigator, whose partner 

 adopts the idea of separate interests, and neither under- 



1 S. Smiles, Self Help, p. 116. 



