Private Life
Kean's lifestyle became a hindrance to his career. In Switzerland, he met Charlotte Cox, the wife of a London city alderman. Kean was sued by Cox for adultery on his return to England. Damages of £800 was awarded against him in the presence of a jury in just 10 minutes. The Times launched a violent attack on him. The adverse decision in the divorce case of Cox v. Kean on 17 January 1825 caused his wife to leave him, and aroused against him such bitter feeling, that he was booed and pelted with fruit when he re-appeared at Drury Lane, as nearly to compel him to retire permanently into private life. For many years he lived at Keydell House, Horndean.
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Famous quotes related to private life:
“The others ‘acted’ a role; I was the role. She who was Mary Garden died that it might live. That was my genius ... and my sacrifice. It drained off so much of me that by comparison my private life was empty. I could not give myself completely twice.”
—Mary Garden (1874–1967)
“There is no private life which has not been determined by a wider public life.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)