The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1872-04-25
A Nevada Serial by Several Hands.

The Weekly Occidental, devoted to liter
ature, made its appearance in Virginia.
= = = We expected great things from
the Occidental. Of course it could not
get along without an original novel, and
so we made arrangements to hurl into
the work the full strength of the COM
pany. Mrs. F. was an able romancist
of the ineffable SCHOOL, know no other
name to apply to school whose heroes
are all dainty and all perfect. She
wrote the opening chapter, and intro
duced q lovely blonde simpleton who
talked nothing but pearls and poetry
and was virtuous to the verge of eccen-
tricity. She also introduced young
French Duke of aggravated refinement,
in love with the blonde. Mr.. f. follow
ed next week with a brilliant lawyer
who sets about getting the dukes es-
tates into trouble, and a sparkling
young lady of high society, who fell to
fascinating the duke and impairing the
appetite of the blonde. Mr. D., dark
and bloody editor of one of the dailies,
followed Mr.. f. the third week, intro
ducing q mysterious Rosicrucian, who
transmitted metals, held consultations
with the devil in cave at dead of night,
and cast the horoscope of the several
heroes and heroines in such way as to
provide plenty of trouble for their future
careers and breed solemn and awful
public interest in the noYel. He also
introduced a cloaked and masked melo-
dramatic miscreant, put him on salary
and set him on the track of the duke
with poisoned dagger. He also Gre
ated an Irish coachman and placed him
in the service of the society young lady
with an ulterior mission to carry billet
doux to the duke.
About this time there arrived in Vir-
ginia a dissolute stranger with literary
turn of mind, rather seedy however but
very quiet and unassuming, almost diff
dent indeed. He applied for literary
work, offered conclusive evidence that he
welded an easy and practiced pen, and
SO ATr. f. engaged him at once to help
him with the novel. His chapter was to
follow Mr.. DIS, and mine was to come
next. Now what does this fellow do
but go off and get drunk, and then pro-
ceed to his quarters and set to work with
his imagination in state of chaos, and
that chaos in a condition of extravagant
activity. The result may be guessed.
He scanned the chapters of his predeces-
sors, found plenty of heroes and heroines
already created, and was satisfied with
them he decided to introduce no more;
with all the confidence that whiskey in
spires, and all the easy complacency it
gives to its servant, he then launched
himself lovingly into his work he mar
ried the coachman to the society young
lady for the sake of the scandal mar
ried the duke to the blondes stepmother
for the sake of the sensation stopped
the desperado's salary created a mis-
understanding between the devil and
the Rosicrucian threw the dukes pro-
perty into the wicked lawyers hands T;
made the lawyers upbraiding conscience
drive him to drink, thence to delirium
tremens, thence to suicide broke the
coachman's neck let his widow sue
cumb to contumely, neglect, poverty,
and consumption caused the blonde to
drown herself, leaving her clothes on the
bank with the customary note pinned to
them forgiving the duke and hoping he
would be happy revealed to the duke
by means of the usual strawberry mark
on left arm, that he had married his
long-lost mother and destroyed his long
lost sister instituted the proper and ne
cessary suicide of the duke and duchess
in order to compass poetical justice
opened the earth and let the Rosicrucian
through, accompanied with the accus-
toned smoke and thunder and smell of
birthstone ; and finished by promise that
in the next chapter, after holding gen
eral inquest, he would take up the sur
viving character of the novel and tell
what became of the devil. CThis chap
ter was never published, but it created
such furry among the contributors to
the Weekly Occidental as to quickly cause
the death of that sheet. Mark TUain.