Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1865-01-24
THE FATE OF GENIUS.

A few years since that unfortunate and
wretched child OF song-the gifted, but
hayward Sumner Lincoln Fairfield was
travelling to the South, with view to the
improvement of his health. He was &C
companied by his son, REMARKABLY bright
and beautiful youth of ten or twelve. years
of age. In conversation with the poet,
we remarked that the lad seemed to pos
sess genius, and gave promise of dis
tinction and usefulness. With a deep,
heartfelt sigh, the unhappy father replied,
~ fear your words are too trne. The
boy has fine parts, but I would rather he
were an idiot than genius. As an idiot,
he would be obscure and comparatively
happy as a genius, he would be epvied,
hated, eccentric. and wretched. 1t is, to
most parents, fattering to be told that
their offspring is gifted, but would rath-
err see my poor boy in his grave than
know that he is the posessor of that fatal
thing called genius" A few weeks after,
in looking over paper published in New
Orleans, we saw the announcement of the
death of poor Fairfield. The unfortunate
and brilliant man died in misery and want
in the very prime of life, and was, we be-
and schoolfellow, George D. Prentice ESQ,
Of the Louisville Journal. Fairfield was a
man of fine edcation and and splendid po-
etc endownents, but misfortune marked
him for its own, and now, far from his ma
tive hills, he lies in an obscure corner, with
no hand to scatter flowers upon his grave,
and no eye to drop a precious tear to his
| memory.
Thus it is too often with men of genius.
Proud, sensitive and aspiring, they become
sourcd and chargrined, avoid their fellows,
and frequently die in want and misery
1t is said that between his fortieth and
sixtieth year, Sir Walter Scott realized by
the productions of his pen, at least half a
million of money. Then followed terri
BILE reverse, and the panic of 1925 came,
leaving the great magician in debt to the
amount of one hundred and thirty thousand
pounds The gentle and genial old man
labored hard to relieve himself from his
embarrassments. His productions yielded
him during six years some eighty thou
sand asyear, but his health failed and at
last he persisted in giant-like effort to
satisfy his creditors.
John Keats,
.'Who sparkled, was exhaled, and went to Heaven,
lived long enough to dazzle the world with
his genius, and then died from the effects
ofpoison, administered by heartless viper
ish reviewer.
The fate of Chatterton, the marvellous
boy who persisted in his pride us also
too we'll known. Prodigally endowed,
with wonderful inventive powers, daring
fancy, and an intellect as brilliant as it
was original and vigorous, he experienced
cruel neglect, suffered from hunger, and
finally, in moment of despair, persisted
by his own hand. Thus passed away one
whose youthful productions have made
his name immortal, and whose more ma
ture efforts would doubtless have ranked
him second only to him who first ex-
hausted worlds, and then invented new"
His biographer tells us that he was buried
without ceremony, among paupers, in Shoe
Lane, his identity could with difficulty be
established when the fact was known.
In his Olives of the Poets," William
Hewitt says. "By one of those acts which
neither science or curiosity can excuse, the
skull of Pope is now in the private col
lection of phrenologist! The manner in
which it was obtained is said to have been
this on some occasion of alteration in tho
church, or burial of some one in the same
spot, the coffin of Pope was disinterred
and opened to see the state of his remains
that by bfibe to the sexton Of the time,