The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-04-27
D MADNESS ALLIED
Rostand's Fate an Example of
the Awful Price
WHICH GENIUS MUST PAY
List of the Great Who Have
Collapsed Mentally.

Edmond Rostand, the greatest French
| dramatist, has gone the way Of Guy de
AIaupassant, the greatest French story
writer of yesterday. The cable tells US
that his friends despair of his reason.
"Cyrano de Beregac" began the de-
"L'Aiglon'' completed the wreck.
Rostand's first play lifted him in the
night from Iowliness to Parnassus. Idol
airy, excitement. exhaustion-who can
tell the cause?-disturbed the balance OF
his reason. There was time when Sarah
Bernhard feared that he would never
finish "LAiglon''
But he did. His intellect rallied to the
task. All his nervous force was squeezed
into the second work ItWas the crisis Of
his life. The fate Of "Cyrano" had been
as nothing compared to it, for in those
happy days of obscurity he had nothing
at stake. 'L'Aiglon" meant everything.
His friends knew that "L'Aiglon" was
written with his hearts blood. Nine.
Bernhard knew it. The very prompter
and stage hands knew it. They read it
in the authors burning eyes, in his hands
twitching Of the muscles about his
mouth.
What they did not realize was that
success would be too late to release Ros-
tand from its own penalties. That is
known now.
The doctors call it. politely and scien-
tiiically, a cerebral disorder" That
means a disorder of the brain In other
words-madness. Rostand's life is threat
ened. Paris hangs breathless upon the
reports from the sick chamber. Just as
the Engish-speaking world hung upon
the reports from the Hotel Grenoble
when Kipling fought with death a year
a<a.
Gabriel d'Annunzio. the most brilliant
writer Of Italy. has been on the verge of
insanity ever since 1.-The Triumph of
Death made him famous.
RuskiRs intellect persisted years before
the man himself was called away. Dean
Swift pointed out 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 prophecy was
fulfilled
Emerson's great machinery Of thought
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, /Schop-
enhauer, Heine, Murger Girard de Ner-
vel-these makers Of Neutrality-suspicious.
from reason to unreason.
Is there another profession which can
show such a tragic roll of its great
names?
One cannot but remember George du
Maurier, moved down in his prime at
the height Of a still more sudden and
more sweeping success. Amiable giant,
content with his vogue as a Punch artist
and to scribble little fiction. he awoke
to find that the English speaking world
had gone insane over "Trilby." He never
recovered from the shock.
Is Fame so brutal that the delicate
mind of the artist withers under it? Or
is literary work of itself too cruel
strain upon the powers?
Viewed in either light Literature be-
comes an Unsuitable monster, a blood
thirsty idol. Moloch The priests OF
Baal, who, in the presence of Elijah, cut
themselves with knives to obtain a
favor from their god, were not more pitt
able than the priests of Literature.
Theophile Gautier observed that lltera-
ture had ever been, for the genuine artist
a Via DolOrosa." AS if divining how to
the bitter end his disciple-de Maupas-
sant-would verify his words, he said,
speaking of these modern times when
every sensation is the subject of an
analysis:
IF the artist cannot find another
corpse he Will stretch himself on the dis
secdng table and plunge the knife into
his own heart.
Rostand, unlike de Maupassant, wove
into his art no trace of the morbid. His
plays were as wholesome as the sunshine
He did not share de Maupassants pes
| simlsm nor his gloomy speculauons about
the unknown. The two men resembled
one another only in their prodigious ca
pacity for work
1 knew Rostand. 1 spent a great part
of last summer with him. He was then
in full possession Of his remarkable
faculties, but not by any means physic-
ally robust The news of his seizure is
ineXpressibly shocking to me.
The author Of "Cyrano de Bergerac''
and ''L'Aiglon" strove for perfection of
form every whit as laboriously as the
author Of "Boule de Stuff" and ''Une
Vie" Nine RosJand told Coquelin that
when the spell was on him he would
spend night after night ar his study
table, rewriting. cutting, modelling his
play, never contented. always striving
after more expressive adjective, a more
harmonious or original rhyme casting
aside a months finished work without q
second thought when he judged that an
other form expressed his idea more per-
fectly."
In q word. he was, like every true
artist, slave TO his work. When en-
gagged on "Cyrano de Bergerac' he wrote
steadily ten hours. each day. CoQueiin
said OF him at this period:
As the great work began taking form
Rostand hired a place in the country so
thai no visitors or invitations might take
aim away from his daily toll.
Rich. young, handsome, married to a
, woman whom all Paris was admiring,
with every door wide open before mis-
birth and his talent. he voluntarily shut
himself I'D FOR over year in dismal
. suburb allowing no amusement TO disturb
7 his incessant toll. Nine. Rostand has
since tod me that az times she seriously
feared for his reason and his life.
IL Rostand's play IS the best this cen
fury has produced-and our greatest
critics are unanimous in pronouncing Il
equal. If not superior. 20 Victor Huso's
GROWING efforts, the young author has
gained his laarels. Leaf BY Leaf. during
the endless midnight OF toll and brain
wrsnEtny effo-t-a prscA thar faU- q,