The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1876-10-05

There are grim dramatic stements In the
horrible tragedy which took place IN this
city on Sunday night, when d Blind French
musician killed Bis infant son, fatally
wounded his wife. and shot himself deafs
Jules Blanc, The murderer and suicide. who
leaves aletter accusing himself alone, had,
1t appears, been tenderly reared, but loved
a lie OF adventure, and followed this i'm.
pulse by lending O seafarfng life until dis
case came md yelled his eyes with q e drop
serene he was married, taHd as the blind
Professors income 8 was Il but 3acantY
his wife became Ia ehorasSinger at the
Academy of Music, and aftefward fol-
lowed the rollicklng fortunes Of 1f,lle.
Aimees's opera ihoufey occasionally ting
small parts. The blind and disappointed
man and the light he3rted young woman,
with her head full Of airy tunes, were not
calculated to pull pleasantly along through
life. So q weird, mocking picture steals be.
Sights, the false glitter Of the HE Of the stage
Chorus, the intoxication of tumuftuous ap-
pIause ore ia the foreground. Back OF
that we see the blind husband cropping
through his little room, prey to the bitter
est OF pangs. He Is jealous and he is blind.
Jealousy does not want eyes to picture its
fancied wrongs, but 1t needs all the senses
to blot the visions out. 81 have loved my
wife, and she loved me, too" he wrote, but
the thought that must have wrought most
on his disordered mind was, can she, the
young, the gay, no doubt the tempted, still
love me, the poor and blind r. How the
blacklist thoughts distorted themselves into
fiendish shapes we can dimly imagine.
There was for him no awaking from this
nightmare Of the BRAIN. he was blind, and
he could never hope to start from his ina
ginings as Richard springs from the rack
whereon' he. has tossed In the, blindness OF
sleep to cry, -. if1s ei5 tx - i 81
Have mercy, Jesus: Soft II did but dream
Ben Jonson, in his best comedy, gives q
picture CT husband, jealous without cause,
who asks. while his fingers tremble,
(Which OF them kissed my wife first I"
There we can laugh, for we know he Is
victim to busy brain, and can be unde-
ceived. Jules Blanc must have trembled
not a little as these thoughts trooped to bis
brain, but he felt that with his wife, in all
the Fictitious dazzle Of her life, amid bland
| ishments and fiattery-in the furnace OF the
passions, as it were-he had no safeguard
for his honor: he was blind. Wretch that
he was, he never dreamed once that
he could trust the woman who washed
the paint from her cheeks and stole
from the stage to their humble home
where her child and her husband waited:
He was blind to the world without and'all
eyes for the grinning demon within. Cow:
ard, he could not trust as he could moi
watch; and the demon told him he could
murder. To look from him and his bloody
work to the picture OF John Milton, old and
blind, and enduring his. domestic infellcl.
ties while he gave to the world the incom-
parable fruits OF his great poetic soul, i
like shifting the glance from hell to heaven:
Happy it is that such a crime as the blind
musicians can be contrasted before weak
humanity with the great blind singers
blameless life. - ~ 4