The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1893-10-13

smiled at DelaUole Win an expression OF
positive hatred
THAT is one of those charmingly
soothing speeches we must learn to ex-
pect from those we live with. But you
are wrong. The trouble lies here.
unfortunately must still be sincere and
must put something of myself into ev-
erything write When one believes in
and cares for so little, it is very hard.
have not yet matched your stride, you
see-you who with one arm around your
neighbours wife could write an essay on
the beauty of morality"
The door banged, and Delatole's foot
steps grew fainter in the echoing pas
sage. In the silence that followed Tom
still lay motionless, his wide open eyes
fixed upon the ceiling, the small unob-
trusive sounds of quiet room f1utte'.
ing the loneliness that settled around
him.
How hate him" and though the
words were but whisper their reality
was intense.
He thought of the past.
That year in Paris-every detail of it
returned to him as he lay there-that
crowded, riotous, unholy year. His first
taste of pleasure, his exuberant appre-
citation of life carrying him along with
the rush of laughing stream going
down hill; the new, fevered atmosphere;
the days spinning by in sort of moral
vertigo; the crowd that called him to
follow where it was brightest, that
brightness lining the sheer descents of
vice.
And nowp Now he was back in famil-
lar New York, bound by honor by wo-
man who wearied him, inclined to rid
himself Of the obligations he had as
sumed in the beginning through sheer
disinclination to the trouble of resisting,
following pleasure with foreknowledge
of WEAKNESS, in debt to Delatole while
straining at the wornout cord that bound
them, struggling against the maddening
inactivity that palsied his faculties in
the art still dear to him.
A sharp. quivering breath came from
his lips.
Delatole had spoken truly. Some
thing had withered within him, or in
the degradation of his life he had lost it
forever. He had striven to write and
always in vain. His ideas were no long
er vivid, stirring, flowing to a logica,
sequence, but dim, abortive-a haze OF
tangled threads. Heaps of closely writ.
ten paper, upon which the best efforts OF
his brain had been expended with the
a race, had been cast aside as worthless.
The day was surely coming when his
world would know the truth and liken
him to plant that puts forth radiant
blossoms once and withers in night.
How miserably he had failed! Was
there no escape from social annihila.
ton except by trading ON the infatua-
ton of a woman 10 years older than
himelfP And once-once-when he had
thought like one inspired, and honor was
shining reality in his life, he had be.
trayed love for a chimera. But he must
not remember that, and least of all to
night, in the silence, when his thought
We're like knives in his heart.
He stood up, shivering. and from habit
turned to the sideboard. He half filled
goblet with brandy and laughed aloud
as the decanter clinked against the glass
In his hand, laugh that subsidized to a
chuckle and rose again, beating upon the
stiffness like the wings of Gagged bird
at wouldn't be out of order to drink
toast to my own defeat"
When he re-entered his studio few
months later, his eyes were flaming,
though the smile-a hideous contortion
fingered on his lips.
An open letter on his disordered desk
faced him as he sat down. The closing
lines caught his eye:
will finally withdraw 1.-THE Worlds Way
from the road in fortnight. Now that four
act sociev drama is what I'm waiting for. In
two years I've had only two curtain raisers
from you-rags of things that only drew at all
because your name was to them. If / can't rely
on you, must look elsewhere. II you're not
going to write any more, for Gods sake say SO.
GEORGE PLUNKET
He read it and tore it to bits. There
was sob in his throat as his eager hands
went searching through the mass of pa
pers for half sketched plots and notes OF
ideas not worth the leaves they were
scrawled upon. He would not even
leave scrap. All should be destroyed.
And these crowded, dusty drawers,
they, too, must be emptied, lest some
day when he had sunk into comfortable
apathy, with only profound respect
for the we'll being of the body, he might
open them and hear each futtering leaf
whisper how he had once dreamed a
dream.
He worked with an eager intensity, as
if following his hearts desire, even went
on his knees and scattered the scrawled
sheets right and left, then paused alb
ruptly and looked with puzzled eyes al
what he ha dragged out-a long roll OF
manuscript, dusty and tied with gray
tape. He did not remember it, had new
er seen it before. Yet, wait. Now that
it lay unfolded before him, fully writ
ten play, he did recall the title. doctor
Fleming"
Just before his departure for Europe
distinguished looking man in the ira
ditional shabbiness of unrecognized gen
ius had called on him with this play
asking in shy, embarrassed way that
he, the splendidly prosperous young au'
thor, would read it and tell him what its
merits were. His papers were never
L., L., bo1 1o;n fO,.