Connecticut western news., 1897-02-18
A LOVER IN STONE.

are strongly lInpreBndCeQ WlGn CalCdreOuS and silicious sinter, white substance which instantaneously incrustates what ever it falls upon. Big mounds and craters are formed by it. Travellers place under the streams bottles and other ob- jects they desire turned to stone," 7" as they term it, and as soon as the sinter hardens carry away their trophies in triumph.
 Mir. Cyril Jacques was morbid, dreamy and downcast young man. With form, fine face and even wealth at his command, he constantly meditated sui eide and determined to become felo de SC. He wandered over the world to discover some artistic method of depart ing this life. He paled at the thought of an inquest over his mortal remains, of accounts in the press and of specula- tion by his fellow man. He climbed Vesuvius and for hours contemplated a plunge into the awful fires below, where his body would never be revealed. He did not fear instantaneous incineration mot that He conceived that in the invisible world in which he was bound he might desire to gather his mortal clements somewhere. some time, in the cycles of eternity; hence, why so utterly annihilate them?
 MT. Jacques sailed to the borders of the great maelstrom off Norway and considered plunge therein heavily plated in metallic armor. Here again he paused and foresaw the decay of the metal and the possibility and absorption of animal life.
 He studied aeronautics intently and consulted the worlds aerostatic engi- neers M. Gabriel Ton and Captains Rem ard and Krebs as to the possibility of an airship which would bear him beyond the earth's atmosphere out into homo loidal space. Again defeat. These great men assured him that, for all his wealth, finite power could not achieve the in finite.
 In the year 1870 he read of the first expeditions of Dr. F. V. Hayden into the unknown wilds of the Rockies, of the initiation of the then worldwide respected United States geological sur vey, of the wonderful geyser regions of Wyoming. Into the northwest corner 1f this territory he hastened his flight. August was waning when he mounted the terraces of Mammoth hot springs and saw the clear blue waters gush from the highest plaza and fall evenly in veillike sheets over the sides, which l constantly increased in size. He saw that he had only to sit there to be pushed higher and higher, while a mountain of incrustation broadened be- tow him and reared him about
 But as he watched the transformation of liquids into solids he saw that certain objects at the base of the mound, as fast as they became incased with sinter, were pushed down hill, down toward the valley below. He speculated. He concluded that some time concussion of steam might explode, the mound, and If body were thrown therein it would become exposed to beasts, men or sun. | So he determined to be incased sepa- | rately and allow his body 10 be pushed | down hill, to become one of the rapidly forming, immense mass of incrustated | objects.
 While the strange young man was ex- hausting his life devising aesthetic means of death Miss Mignonette Favre ! was leading dissimilar career of in venting fancies and searching the world for man who should be a synonym oi | her ideals so created In her flights oi romanticism she had investigated the | widest noble red man in the deepest oi | unfrequented deeps, but ascertained that his value set on woman was less than that of a horse. She studied [
 widower president, but, if he fulfilled
 her dream, he did not take kindly tc her advances. She went abroad deter
 mined to fascinate great prince, bu
 all the princes she met spoke not o1
 love, but of an annual stipend to be-
 come her husband.
 In 1890 Miss Favre decided to enjoy
 the summer in the Yellowstone Nationa park, tract solely under the jurisdic tion of the government, but formerly { part of the then territories of Wyoming
 and Montana. The Mammoth Ho Springs hotel suited her romantic ideas
 While here she often climbed the plaza
 of the great spring. She placed bottle
 combs, horseshoes and other objects un
 der the trickling streams and saw then
 turned to stone" to her hearts con
 tent. While she filled big boxes with .
 varied collection of these apd kindred
 objects her ideal in this repect, as il
 the case of man, was unfulflled.
 She saw the big heaps of objects in
 crustated, which seemed to have slit
 down into the valley, and she was in
 dignant at the government for enactins
 laws to protect this avalanche" ant
 making it misdemeanor to carry an,
 down the avalanche-for such the slant
 ing collection of objects seemed to be-
 and each day paused before massiv , cone of white sinter, the solidity an
 great beauty of which she admired 8
 much that it became monomania wit
 her. The cone was about seven feet i !. length, with diameter of two feet, an
 looked as if it were a classic Ionic col
 umn. At least Miss Favre concluded sh
 could not live without the cone. In he
 frenzied admiration of it she forgot
 search for a man of her romance. Sh ! hired the stableman to take truste / force of men, steal the coveted object 2
 night and bear it away to Livingston
 Mon, by means of relays of horses an . stout vehicles. The men conveyed it h
 unused paths, avoiding the routes whel ,. officials were stationed, and got it safel }, to Livingston, where it was careful packed in long box and shipped
 New York at total cost of $l0, 00i s half of which went to the stablemen. r. Miss Mignonette accompanied h' @ treasure, and on her arrival at her ST
 perb mansion on West End avenue ha
 it unpacked and artistically displaye = in an aesthetic, well lighted upper roo
 which she had converted into sort
 museum for the exhibition of her tr
 phies collected while travelling. He
 she spent hours daily admiring her Urea II ure, examining and re-examining Il 't surface, which variously resembled co y als and stalagmites, honeycombs al 'r cells Nor did she tire. On the contrar
 an oreat oraxv her fascination that