Владимир Дубковский – Nectar for Your Soul (страница 3)
We will return to Napoleon later, but for now let’s return to one of the phrases from his letter to Joséphine, dated June 8, 1796:
Two more of Napoleon’s phrases, recorded by Las Cases in his notebook, will be useful to us later:
Do you believe that Napoleon ever had a chance to find happiness in his marriage to Josephine? We maintain that he did, and after having read this book, you will find the reason for our certainty. We are convinced that every person who has the ability to reject false notions and to open themselves to new knowledge can become happy, regardless of the circumstances of his or her life at the present moment. In this book we will set forth this new knowledge, but for the moment, let us acquaint ourselves with the story of one more great person: Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865) the sixteenth president of the United States. He was a man possessed both of a great mind and great masculinity, who made massive contributions to the unity of his country. He earned the respect of both his friends and enemies, of everyone but his wife, who was a great source of suffering for Lincoln. American psychologist Dale Carnegie speaks of them in his book
“The great tragedy of Abraham Lincoln’s life also was his marriage. Not his assassination, mind you, but his marriage. When Booth fired, Lincoln never realized he had been shot; but he reaped almost daily, for twenty-three years, what Herndon, his law partner, described as “the bitter harvest of conjugal infelicity.” “Conjugal infelicity?” That is putting it mildly. For almost a quarter of a century, Mrs Lincoln nagged and harassed the life out of him.
“She was always complaining, always criticizing her husband; nothing about him was ever right. He was stoop-shouldered, he walked awkwardly and lifted his feet straight up and down like an Indian.
“She complained that there was no spring in his step, no grace to his movement; and she mimicked his gait and nagged at him to walk with his toes pointed down, as she had been taught at Madame Mentelle’s boarding school in Lexington.
“She didn’t like the way his huge ears stood out at right angles from his head. She even told him that his nose wasn’t straight, that his lower lip stuck out, and he looked consumptive, that his feet and hands were too large, his head too small.
“Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln were opposites in every way: in training, in background, in temperament, in tastes, in mental outlook. They irritated each other constantly.
“Mrs. Lincoln’s loud, shrill voice,” wrote the late Senator Albert J. Beveridge, the most distinguished Lincoln authority of this generation—“Mrs Lincoln’s loud shrill voice could be heard across the street, and her incessant outbursts of wrath were audible to all who lived near the house. Frequently her anger was displayed by other means than words, and accounts of her violence are numerous and unimpeachable.”
“To illustrate: Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, shortly after their marriage, lived with Mrs. Jacob Early – a doctor’s widow in Springfield who was forced to take in boarders.
“One morning Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln were having breakfast when Lincoln did something that aroused the fiery temper of his wife. What, no one remembers now. But Mrs Lincoln, in a rage, dashed a cup of hot coffee into her husband’s face. And she did it in front of the other boarders. Saying nothing, Lincoln sat there in humiliation and silence while Mrs. Early came with a wet towel and wiped off his face and clothes.
“Mrs. Lincoln’s jealousy was so foolish, so fierce, so incredible, that merely to read about some of the pathetic and disgraceful scenes she created in public – merely reading about them seventy-five years later makes one gasp with astonishment. She finally went insane; and perhaps the most charitable thing one can say about her is that her disposition was probably always affected by incipient insanity” [3].
You could say that Lincoln, like Napoleon, was simply unlucky in his marriage. But if we take a look at the research of sociologists, we see that 90% of people are “unlucky” in marriage. This distressing statistic is tied to the fragility of family unity in the world around us. On average, almost every other marriage in the world officially ends in divorce, and of the remaining half of marriages three fourths of wedded couples can be found in the category ranging from “habitually-indifferent” to “it can’t get any worse.” Those marriages in which it “can’t get any worse” retain their legal status for a number of reasons: lack of desire to divide possessions, complex legal procedures, fear of judgment on the part of society…
“Unplanned” or “unlucky” marriages don’t exist, and in the pages of this book it will be revealed how any marriage can be transformed into a happy or, at the very least, peaceful and comfortable marriage. But don’t rush to thumb through the pages in search of this information; our recipes work only if you study the contents of each chapter attentively and in their proper order.
Familial disarray is not the only reason for suffering. People suffer from injustice and the knowledge of their inability to combat that injustice, from fear of impending old age and from poverty, from pain after the loss of loved ones, from creative failure, and from loneliness and disease…
While researching the boundless theme of “Human Suffering,” we found deeply unhappy people in all historical eras and in all circles of society. Torturous suffering affects not only average people, but also kings, presidents of countries and corporations, top models, and the stars of Hollywood and show business.
The dream of many young women to be a supermodel seems appealing on the glossy covers of magazines. But the famous German beauty Claudia Schiffer revealed what goes on “behind the covers” in her interview for the magazine
It also turns out that almost all famous artists and wealthy people are unhappy.
Nikolai Gogol (1809—1852), the famous Russian prose writer and dramatist, wrote in a letter to his friend: “Hanging or drowning appear to me as medicine or relief.”
Lev Tolstoy (1828—1910), the great Russian writer, author of novels known around the world such as
“I am hiding the rope in order to stop me from hanging myself from the rafters in my room at night when I’m alone. I don’t go hunting anymore, so as to avoid the temptation to shoot myself. It seems to me that my life has been a stupid farce.”
Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880), a French writer, complained in his journal: “Everything seems loathsome to me. I would hang myself with joy, but only pride prevents me…” [5].
Flaubert kept himself from suicide, but many of his famed peers were unable to do the same.
In the eyes of many readers the great American writer Ernest Hemingway (1899—1961) resembled the hero of his well-known story “The Old Man and the Sea,” whose slogan was “Do not surrender under any circumstances!” He was a Nobel laureate, succesful fisherman, first-class hunter, frequenter of pubs – in general, a real man: smart, strong and warmhearted. But this was all merely a mask, behind which hid a deeply suffering soul.
Hemingway repeatedly attempted to kill himself. Even on the way to the clinic, where he planned to get help for his depression, Hemingway tried to throw himself from an airplane, and then on the ground, after landing he tried to kill himself on the blades of a spinning propeller. Having returned home after treatment, Hemingway all the same went through with what he had earlier attempted and ended up shooting himself with his favorite rifle on July 2, 1961.
The writer’s granddaughter, the beautiful Margaux, was at one time the highest paid model in America and then a successful actress; but she too could not escape depression, fell into alcoholism and marked the thirty-fifth anniversary of her grandfather’s death in a most peculiar way, by ending her own life.
The tragic story of Hemingway immediately calls to mind the tragedy of another great American author, Jack London (1876—1916), who killed himself as the result of prolonged depression, exacerbated by alcoholism.
London also extolled the will to live; the heroes of his novels and stories, who were able to overcome any difficulty, became images of strength and masculinity for generations of readers around the world. At first the author himself resembled his heroes, enduring many hardships and blows of fate. On the surface he always appeared as a cheerful, energetic, strong-willed man and displayed unbelievable work ethic; in the course of fifteen years, he wrote so much that the full collection of his works constituted forty volumes!