Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-06-16
DOES FAME HURT
THE MIND ?

Edmond Rostand. the greatest French
dramatist. has gone the way OF Guy de
Maupassant, the greatest French story
| writer of Yesterday. The cable tells us
that his friends despair Of his reason.
| 'Cyrano de Bergerac" began the de-
| struction of the intellect thai created It.
"L'Aiglon'' completed the wreck.
| Rostand's first play lifted him in the
night from the lowliness of Parnassus.
| Idolatry, excitement, exhaustion-who
can tell the cause?-disturbed the bal
| ance of his reason. Their was a time
when Sarah Bernhard feared that he
would never finish 'L'Algion."
But he did. His intellect rallied to the
task. All his nervous force was squeezed
into the second work. 1t was the crisis
of his life. The. fate of .Cyrano had been
| as nothing compared to it, for in those
happy lays of obscurity he had moth
ing at stake. "L'Aiglon" meant every
thing. .N.~s~s99Uuh
/ HIS friends knew that "L'Aiglon" was
written with his hearts blood. Nine.
B%ernhardt knew it. They read 1t In the
authors burning eyes, in his hands
through which one saw the light, IN the
twitching of the muscles about MS
mouth. -
success would be too late to release Ros-
tand from it's own penalties. That IS
known now.
The doctors call It, politely and scien-
tifcally. a cerebral disorder" That
means a disorder of the brain. In other
words = madness. Rostands lfre Is
threatened. Paris hangs GREATNESS upon
the reports from the sick chamber, just
as the English-speaking world hung
upon the reports from the Hotel Greno-
Bile When Kipling fought with death a
year ago. ..
IL. - r@olxy hoe boop on the Verge nf
insanity ever since 1.-The Triumph OF
Death made him famous.
Ruskin's intellect, persisted years be-
fore the man himself was called away.
Dean Swift pointed ont a tree the upper
branches of which had withered, and
told his friends that he should die like
that-from the top down-and the proph-
ecy was fulfilled.
r Emerson's great machinery of thought
t crumbled away and the philosopher be-
came a child, content to play with toys.
Poe and Baudelaire stepped over the
line that divides madness from such
gloomy genius as theirs. Pascal. Tasso
Schopenhauer, Heine, Murger, Grad de
l Nervel. these makers of literature re-
e lapsed from reason to unreason.
Is there another profession that car
: show such a tragic roll of Its great men
One can not but remember George du
I Maurier. moved down in his prime a
0 the height of a still more sudden anG
more sweeping success. Amiable. giant
0 content with his vogue as an artist ane
to scribble a little fiction. he awoke tt
find that the English speaking world ma.
gone insane over "Trilby." He neVel
recovered from the shock.
: Is fame so brutal that the delicate
: mind of the artist withers under 1t? o
g is literary work of itself too cruel {
! ! strain upon the powers?
q Viewed in either light, literature be
} 49, 3nr tin IIn ,onrc STOW q hind
!, thirsty idol, a Moloch. The priests o
l. Baal, who. in the presence of Elijah, Gu
. themselves with knives to obtain a favo
from their god, were not more pitiabl
than the priests of literature.
Theonhile Gautier observed that liter
allure had ever been. for the genuine art
! ist. a "Via Dolorosa." AS II divininI
8 how to the bitter end his disciple-d
Maupassant-would verify his words, h
a said, speaking of these modern times
when "everv sensation is the subject Q
analysis"
.If the artist cannot can find anothe
corpse he Will stretch himself on the dis
sectine table and plunge the knife int
his own heart
Va Rostand. unlike de Maupassant, WOW
le Into his art no traces of the morbid. HI
ID plays were as wholesome as the sur
D shine. He did not share de Maupas
SAINTS pessimism nor his gloomy specu
ID latdons about the unknown. The tw
re men resembled one another only in the
ID prodigious capacity for work. -
a knew Rostand. I spent a great pa
of last summer with him. He was the
in full possession of his remarkable fat
lie ulties. but not by any means PHYSICAL
h., robust. The news of his seizure is il
expressfblv shocking to me.
i'll The author of "CyranO de Bergerat
ne and "L'Aielon" strove for perfection
k. form everv whit as iaboriously as II
-0gYY