The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1893-06-24
THE THREE CHUMS.

IHE IHKEE MS.
When l was in college l had two very
dear friends, Marsden and Masterson.
We were always together, despite the
fact that there could hardly have been
found anywhere in the world three men
whose ideas on most subjects SO radically
differed. Perhaps it was the intellectual
pleasure we derived from debating
among ourselves, with an acrimony only
possible among the fastest of friends, the
pros and cons of every question that
came up that was the bond of our union.
Whatever the bond was, we were GER
tainly inseparable, and l think, on that
last night in New Haven, when after
four years of most intimate association
we parted, each to walk alone his path
through life, there were three very tear
stained pillows beneath our respective
heads before Morpheus claimed our allie
glance. l know that l for one was com
PEELED to change mine, so saturated did
it become with those salt evidences of Il
sincere grief which We're copiously shed
by my eyes that night.
The parting between Marsden and
Masterson and myself was geographical
rather than spiritual. Marsden's lines
fell in the pleasant places Of Boston;
Masterson's in those of Baltimore, and
mine in New York. Marsden studied
medicine, Masterson became a professor
of psychology without a chair, and !
drifted through a period of misery as a
student of law into literary, sharp shoot
ing; but through it all we kept up a
three cornered correspondence in which
the hopes and fears of our lives We're
freely confded, with the result, l think,
that we all took a more cheerful view of
existence than would otherwise have
} been possible. 1t was the perfect candOr
; of our intercourse that helped us. What
t l did not like about Marsden | frankly
: told him, and when l disapproved of
t Masterson, Masterson was the first to
know it, and vice versa. 1t was helpful;
it was delightful. We lived in a palace
of truth, which, alas! is no more.
Five or six years was the duration of
our post graduate alliance, which was
> broken by death first, and then by that
which is worse than death-madness;
and it all came about through the toe
l close application of Marsden and Master
S son to their work. Marsden had always
0 been noted for his love of the mysterious
and morbid. In the old college days il
used to trouble Masterson and myself
t not a little TO find how exceedingly fond
q of the depressing things of life Marsder
= was-that is to say, he liked to hear and
talk about them. He liked to read sto
ries not only bordering upon but plung
ing into the middle Of the supernatural
and while Masterson and | were compil
ing scrapbooks of clippings showing how
: easily Yale crews defeated Harvard
crews, and other matters of alma mater
nal interest, Marsden was filling envel
opes with horrors-stories of vampires
tales of hallucination and other unnat
ural things.
G While Masterson and | were readin,
such light and airy stories as pelham
n and "Pendennis," with Herrick as on
O ideal poet, Marsden would devote hi
# hours of outside reading to Hoffman
v Poe and Monk Lewis, and any versifie
! whose sentiment smacked Of malari
could be his poet for the time being.
think the only point on which Master
70 son and | ever really agreed was in II
d gard to Marsden's unhealthy passion fo
G the g~rotesque, and we We're unremittin
ia in our efforts to bring him down to tn
real sunshiny things of life, but l cal
Y not say that we We're ever sanguine
m the result of Il efforts.
re 1t was Marsden's horrible addiction I
10 such matters that led Masterson into I'll
study of psychology and Marsden hin
&c, self into medicine, and if Marsden woul
NJ have gone at it in the coldly ~scientif
af manner of Masterson think he woul
- have been all right, although MastersC
carried his GOODNESS a degree too far
y that he did not recognize the fact tn;
III minds, like machines, speedily go
pieces if not kept in repair. 1t was viii
trying to comprehend Marsden's mil
. that Masterson became interested
ne mental science, and it was Marsder
passion for the insane that decided hi
TN to become a physician, so that he mig
he come into actual contact with those wi
ect suffered the things of which he read.
ey Each succeeded in reaching his go;
nd Masterson at the age Of thirty foul
nd himself an accepted authority on psycl
or. logical matters. Marsden at twenty-ni
~ was actively connected with the medic
staff of an asylum for the insane in Nj
sachusetts, and then the end came. M;
0o terson's candle had been burned at be
.pi ends, and he was nigh unto death. Nv
ing the first to hear of it, because my dut
We're such that l had been able to vi
his Masterson at Baltimore-which Marsdt
me owing to his more or less confined duti
could not very well do, and so was kno,
are to Masterson's family, who immediate
V is wired me of the precarious condition
iris my old friend. The telegram l receiv
at 8 o'clock i'll the morning of a Septe
Der day, and l Immediately repeated
to Marsden i'll Boston, adding that it v
nc. my intention to leave New York for B
E in timore that night.
Two hours later l received a messa
from Marsden saving: "Wait for me.
~ must not die"
This was more or less unsettling.
1It1-