Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1895-08-14
A WORK OF GENIUS.

room on the second floor of that dingy
lodging house on the Kensington road,
when some people entered the chamber.
They were the few friends who ad-
hered to the dead man in the last black
days of his adversely. Between them
they had paid his landlady, his doctor
and his nurse. One of them had adopted
his little child-the only relative that
he was known to have. Now they had
come to see the removal of such papers
and personal effects as he might have
left. More particularly they wanted to
take possession, on the child's behalf,
of the "Work of Genius, the great play
to which he had been putting his finish
ing touches when he was taken i'll.
Mrs Saunders, the servant girl said,
was out. Yes, she had had Mr. Bourne's
letter, but didn't expect him quite SO
early. She had gone shopping, but was
sure to be back soon. Would the gentle
men step in and waltz
They would. So she showed the Wis
itors into the little front parlor, where
the man of genius had lived and worked.
There were three of them-St. John
Bourne, the great tragedian, lessee and
manager of the Hyde Park theater, who,
seven years before, had produced the
play which had first made the man of
genius known. Philip Gaythorne, the
dramatic critic, who had extolled it. in
hysterical and almost fearful periods, in
the columns of The Daily Meteor, and
Ralph Ericsson, the young bohemian
barrister, who did not practice, but cul-
tivated the muses. on a parental allow
ance of $4,000 year.
The room in which they sat down to
wait was miserably dismal. A medical
student, who was just then away enjoy
ing himself i'll the operating theater of
St. Thomas hospital, had succeeded to
it. Indications of his calling were not
wanting. On the mantelpiece were
skull and disorderly arrangement of
microscopic slides. On the table there
was stethoscope, half covered with a
dirty pack of cards. In corner there
were test tubes filled with glycerin, for
the culture Of tubercle bacilli. There
was a mingled odor of iodoform and
stale tobacco smoke. Altogether the
place was very melancholy and not at
all fit to be the dwelling Of a man of
genius.
The three men took off their hats and
gloves and unbuttoned their fur lined
overcoats and sat down on the least un
comfortable of the chairs and talked.
Their talk, as was natural, was of the
man of genius-of his sudden rise, Of
his gradual decline, of the great work
that was at last to have retrieved his
fortunes, if he had lived.
For the man had sprung in night
from obscurity to greatness. Els name
till then had been unknown even to
those who make it their business to
keep their eyes upon the young men Of
promise who are presently to rise. One
day it had been mysteriously whispered
abroad that st. John Bourne had discov
cred a new dramatist of extraordinary
talent When public curiosity was thus
sufficiently aroused, there had duly fol-
lowed the announcement of The Knight
Errant, a New and Original Play, by
Norman Voules." Then came the pro-
duction, hailed with tumultuous ac
clamations, and the author passed at a
single step into the front rank of writer's
for the English stage.
Philip Gaythorne spoke Of the mem
orable first night.
"I never saw house more enthusias
tic," he said "You never had part,
Bourne, which fitted you better, but, for
once, I think, there was even more en-
thusiasm for the author than for the
actor. Nobody knew him. We were all
asking each other who he was and where
he came from, and nobody would say.
Indeed I'm not sure that I know where
he came from even now. He was always
very reticent about his beginnings.
Have you any idea what they were?''
Something commercial, Bourne an
swered 81 rather fancied he manufac-
tured vinegar, in small way, in Ber-
mondsey, Or was it mineral waters? I
can't be sure. Whatever it was, the poor
fellow would have done better for him
self if he'd stuck to it,
"You think his success turned his
head, them" said Ericsson.
Undoubtedly. He'd been working
and waiting for it for years, caring for
nothing else, thinking Of nothing else.
Nobody encouraged him nobody would
read his plays. I only read The Knight
,Errant' myself by the merest accident.
took it up one night when I was suf-
fering from insomnia, thinking it would
send me to Sleep Instead Of that it kept
me awake, and put it i'll rehearsal and
produced it two months afterward. Poor
Voules was quite overwhelmed by the
success. He walked about like man
in dream. He couldn't work. He
couldn' t do anything but talk about him
self and ask what people were saying
about him. He gave up his business and
| fell away from his old friends and be-
came bohemian of the bohemians. "
Ralph Ericsson, who himself had de-
serted Philistia for Bohemia, put in a
word for the bohemian life.
Bohemia is all very well for some
of u.s. Bourne continued, "but it is
very bad for man like Norman Voules,
who plunges into it suddenly at SIS. He
can't take it as a matter Of course He
enjoys it too much. He gets to regard
midnight suppers as the serious bust
ness of life. He hangs about clubs
drinking whisky and saying smart
things when he ought to be sitting at
home putting them on paper When he
/ does get home, he finds that the whisky
and soda have taken away all his energy
for work; that, instead of going to bed
early and getting fit for it, he sits up
drinking more whisky and soda and
thinking of it. Then he finds, as poor
Norman did, that he is spending money
good deal faster than he is making it.
! Sometimes he makes desperate effort
and RECEIVERS himself; sometimes he
doesn' l"
In this way the talk turned upon the
gradual lapse Of Norman Voules, which
made melancholy story. His first sig
nal triumph had never been followed by
a second In the course of seven years
two one act pieces Of moderate but b