Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-07-21

1t was on a dull, hot, heavy day in the
middle of London August, and in the
middle of a London street, that Denis War
rem first felt himself overpowered by
dreadful doubt-the most dreadful, per
haps, of all that can occur to a man like
him. 1t was not whether he was really the
greatest genius in the world; many men,
even much younger than he, have expert
enced that without feeling that there is
nothing left to live for. 1t was whether he
was a genius at all; whether he was moi
Just as commonplace a piece of human
crockery as the unoccupied crossing
sweeper at the corner, or even as the stock
broker, if such it was, whose wheels
splashed the mud upon him as they passed
bv. Once he would have held his head
the higher: it is an honor to walk in days
when only dull folk ride. To-day, the
splasher only asked him whether he were
not really the dullest of all the dull-too
dull even to become a millionaire. Per-
haps, indeed he might aspire to take the
place of the crossing-sweeper; though even
of that he was no longer sure.
Denis Warren was a musician, who had
started upon his career in the full faith that
his name, although so unpromisingly En-
glish, would travel down to posterity in
company with Beethoven's at the very least,
if not in advance; and a poor sort of a
musician he would have been had he been
content with less at starting-unless, in
deed, he were so great, beyond all other
greatness, as to think only of music, and
not of himself at all. Denis did think a
great deal of himself, it must be owned; and
even the purest and most practical sense
will allow that, on this particular day, he
had ample reason why. He had come out
in the morning, with exactly seveupence in
his pocket-all he owned in the world except
the clothes he stood in, half-a-dozen manu-
script operas, an unfinished oratorio, a
wife, and bundle of unpaid bills-to pick
up few crumbs from the wealth OF London;
and he was returning homeward with the
same amount of capital, all but fvepence,
which had somehow turned into crumbs for
richer sparrows' picking. Every acquaint-
ance he had was out of town or pocket; not
a tradesman would glance at what he had to
sell, even at the latest pot-boiler of which
he was the most ashamed. But that was an
old story now; there was scarcely trades
man left who was not inaccessible when
Denis Warren called. Common sense will
suggest the pawnbroker's. But not the
most benevolent of pawnbroker will ad-
vance anything worth mentioning on a
piece of music paper, wife, or an unpaid
bill.
In short, here was Denis Warren, at an
age when he ought to have had firm foot
on the ladder of life, worse than penniless,
worse than friendless, and overcome by
sudden annihilation of pride which means
the crowning loss of all-the loss of courage
1t was new loss to him, from which, in
&c ha IT. ho,
recover; and even if he had known how,
hunger and WEAKNESS of body and spirit,
and the thought of hunger at home, had to
be reckoned with as well. Lite took the
form of one colossal blunder-the impotence
of ambition, the barrenness of labor, the
cruelty even of love. Even when he ex-
claimed, almost aloud, "Poor Mabel!' he
really meant "Poor Denisi' for though it
was bad enough to return home with an
empty pocket, it was worse to face the
woman to whom he had condescended from
his height of genius in the character of
selfdetected imposter. This was the cruel
est part of all.
And, therefore, his homeward way was as
slow as heavy heart could make it: indeed
1t was hardly his homeward way at all-it
was one OF those ways which are just as
likely as not to last for hours, and then to
come to sudden stop at the bottom of the
Thames. There was nothing in his appear
ance to attract the attention of passer-by,
whether Leyite or Samaritan; anybody idle
enough to glance at him, took him for Just
fellow idler, trying to amuse himself with
the shop windows. What an unfailing at
traction shop windows always exercise upon
eyes too blinded by mental mist to see any
thing in Them! So at least it was with
Denis, who must at last have stood for
good quarter of an hour at the least, gazing
into florists window without knowing it
from cheesemonger's. Lines drawn from
his eyes would have converged upon a
branch of Goldenrod, with its rich clusters
of starry bloom; but to him it might have
been a wax doll or brass kettle, for all
that his mind saw.
But, his eyes still fixed upon what, to
him, was misty space, and after q space of
time that might have been either a moment
or an age-conscious the while, if of anv-
thing outside himself at all, only of the hum
of the traffic which turned to rhythm in his
brain-he started as if he had received
galvanic shock. Had the stars of the Gold
enrod been human eyes, they would have
opened and stared to see how suddenly he
flushed, and then grew pale; how the veins
stood out on his forehead; how he trembled
for a moment from head to foot, as If he had
been touched, or rather stung, by an unseen
wand. Possibly, however, being a flower,
the Goldenrod saw not only as much as a
man or a woman might see-which after all
is never anything worth mentloning-but a
great deal more.
No longer at the place of an aimless
snail, but as if he were pursuing what he
feared might escape him at the next corner,
avoiding collisions on the pavement, and
the perils of the crossings. only by that
instinct which comes to the help of men
who, whether walking or sleeping, are not
in state to help themselves he at last
reached the door of the shabby lodging
house in shabby street-one of those doors
where very small girl on tip-toe is for
ever trying to reach the topmost of half a
dozen bell-handles, and forever in vain
Before Denis the door seemed to melt like
mist, and, weak and weary as he must have
been, he was at the topmast landing with
out being conscious of Q single stair.
The room in which his flight, or his chase
ended was as poor as its owner, but for one
thing-the light that came into a pair of
brown eyes when Denis entered. If this
was what he had been pursuing there was
little wonder at his speed. The owner of
the eyes was young woman of no especial
beauty, and yet it was plain to see that who
ever could call that light into her face by
his coming could never be truly called
poor man, even if he had to go without
more common food. But-not an answer
ing glance did it receive from Denis. There
was light, indeed, upon his own face, too;
but it was not for her.
Mabel Warren, whom undeserved misfort-
une had doomed to be the wife of q man
whose profession was genius, was not es-
pecially sensitive to apparent trifes; but
the light changed into moisture, and she
sighed; and when that was over she became
just as commonplace young woman as ever