Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1900-08-12
TRAGEDY OF CHARLEY HOYT.
The Pathos of a Fun Makers Mute
Appeal Beyond the Grave.
Baltimore Sun.

| him into obscurity.
| Two years ago he looked upon his young
wife in her coffin with her dead infant on
her breast When the curtain was rung
! down upon beautiful Caroline Miskel Hoyt
it caught the playwright in its folds. To-
day it has obscured him utterly.
The funmaker came into the Hartford
Probate Court recently to plead for his
liberty. He came to make a protest
against friends who, in their regard for
him, would immune him in retreat for
the insane.
Il have had great deal of trouble,
judge he said. Il have lost my wife and
child both-both-beth
The brain that for 20 years had provid-
ed fun for thousands seemed to waiver,
| the voice that had so often been raised
to create a new witucism broke. The
funmakers head fell upon his breast.
Treuble-trouble," he repeated vaguely,
tottering where he stood.
Jokes ObIiterated by Grief.
Charley Hoyt's insanity is not happy.
He has still the realization that his
idol the woman who made life precious
to him, is dead. He knows that in a lit
tie cemetery at Charlestown, N. H., his
wife and infant son are sleeping. Be
cause of them he has forgotten his
jokes. His business till then was to make
people laugh. He did it well and easily.
n Hoyt play meant an evening of fun.
Hoyt play was synonymous with good
time.
But that was before Charley Hoyt had
been driven insane by sorrow. That was
haf iol-e [., hi
pen in tears.
Caroline MiSkeFs Beauty.
Caroline Miskel Hoyt was one of the
most beautiful women of her day. To most
playgoers it is scarcely necessary to re-
call her She was a beauty and an ac-
tress She was as the poet would have
had her, tall and divinely fair. She was
bewftching beauty, with amiability in
her smile and graciousness in her man
ner. Her hair was golden, her cheeks
were pink, her skin was white. Those
who may not have had the pleasure Of
seeing her off the stage may have fancied
that powder and dye and rouge might so
endow her. But Caroline Miskel Hoyt
was a beauty who might have stepped
from behind the footlghts into a glare of
natures own making ana have held her
own beneath IT, The charm of her color
ing was an accessory to the charm of her
features. Her chin captivated, her eyes
delighted, her lips allured.
In the memory Of men Caroline Mskel
Hoyt would have lived as a beauty even
if she had never learned TO act. But she
was Il beauty with ambition, a beauty
with ability, a beauty destined to be a
y,r.f1 toe, q;
she was. For his wife Charley Hoyt. the
playwright, wrote the most classical COM
edy OF his career "A Contented Woman"
Through it Caroline Miskel Hoyt claimed
rank an actress.
Hoyt's First Glimpse of Her.
When Caroline MiSkel first came upon
the vision of genial Charley Hoyt she was
still a novice. He saw her in Robert Man
tells company, which was then appearing
in play called THE Face in the Moon
light a young slip of girl, with an in
descrfbable charm of face and fascination
of manner. That night she unclaimed
Charley Hoyt in her list of slaves. When
Fate loosened those shackles it was to
conssn him to a madhouse.
on the night that Caroline Miskel first
mind new play. 1t was still in the chaot-
&c state that precedes writing AS he sat
in an orchestra chair watching The Face
in the Moonlight" a little golden haired
novice inspired the character Ruth the
simple young girl in "A Temperance
Town" Before he slept that night Char
ley Hoyt had met and engaged Caroline
Miskel for his unwritten play. His other
engagement with her came later It came
after her appearance in "a Temperance
Town. in the midst of an overwhelming
triumph. Before the season was over the
new beauty had become Mrs. Charley
Hoyt Her charms Charley Hoyt basked
in. From them he received the most Sc
rious inspiration of bis life. His wife's
ambition to become an actress inspired
him to weave the cleVerest satire he ever
wrote, "A Contented Woman" in which
she appeared as the delicately tinted fem
ininity opposed to strong minded women.
ABrOken-Hearted Man.
This was the woman who was Charley
Hoyts idol For three years she was
his life, his light. his happiness. At the
end of them he bowed his head over the
coffin where she lay. with her dead baby
on her breast. When he raised it Charley
Hoyt the funmaker, had fed In his
place was a broken hearted man, des-
tined to weep and weep alone.
Before six months had passed the au-
thor of "A Parlor Match" "A Trip to
Chinatown" "A Stranger in New York"
and a dozen other pleasantries had bro
ken down. He had tried to do what hun
dreds of other grief-stricken men have
done before him. In work and dissipation
he sought surcease of sorrow. He burned
the candle at both ends, dreading the
dark. In the dark ne saw his young wife
in her coffin, with her dead baby on her
breast. Rather than be alone he walked
the streets or sat in the corridors of no.
tells. From sheer exhaustion he was often
found sleeping in some public room He
lived restlessly, actively. necessarily. He
grieved morbidly, deeply, unremittingly.
Deg in the Manager.
For years he had been accustomed to
make annual productions. He announced
that the year following his wife's death
should make no exception. II will write
a farce he cried with break I'm his
voice. In the hours when others slept he
wrote; in the hours when they were
awake he was their companion He rest
ed neither by night nor by day. In scenes
for his new farce Charley Hovt sought to
obliterate the picture of his dead wife in
her coffin.