Some folks have, through no great fault of their own it seems, rather tragic lives. There’s an interesting article on T.S. Eliot in the New Yorker by Louis Menand which strikes a good balance, provided one counterbalances with the parallel literary accomplishments. At any rate, Menand’s article is useful background to, say, Eliot’s Selected Essays (I link to amazon.uk since they have the more complete later edition rather than just the 1932 version. Poetic justice :).