The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-02-07

ready pen. He was a mystery to every
body who knew him. A woman loved
him. and he was mystery to her. On
the day of his suicide the following ad-
verusement appeared IN the news
papers:
STIRLING-By suicide in the Hudson
river, poet and man Of genius. in the
22d year of his age, only son Of Rich
ard Z. and Grace Stirling. deceased,
Of Chicago. Chicago papers please
COPY.
This was written by himself. and when
it appeared many paragraphs were
printed limiting at a resemblance Of the
wording to that Of another self-con-
fessed genius. This was the best that
was said, but it hurt no one. for what
little debt Stirling owed to the world
had been paid
The thought OF death tortured Stir
ling, is il did Chatterton. This is mani
fest in nearly all he wrote, and no place
more wildly than in the short appeal
he makes before entering on his story
H says.
Header.
i do not know if The Valley Of the
Shadow means to you what it means
to me; I do not know if it means any
thing at all to you. But I have sought
long and far for these words. to utter
an all but unutterable thought
When you walk to the forest you do
not count the lives that you tread into
nothingness. When you rejoice with the
springtime you do not hear the cries of
the young things that are choked and
beaten down and dying. When you
watch the wild thing In your snare you
do not know the meaning Of the torn
limbs. and the throbbing heart, and the
awful silence Of the crea ture trapped.
When you go where the poor live. and
see thin faces and hungry eyes and
crouching limbs, you do not think of
these things either.
But ]. reader dwell in the Valley
of the Shadow.
Sometimes it is silent in my Valley.
and the creatures sit in terror of their
screams that pierce the sky; but there
is never any answer in my Valley.
There are quivering hands there and
Tacked limbs, and aching hearts. and
painting souls. There is gasping strug-
gle gIaring failure-maniac despair.
For over my Valley rolls The Shadow,
a giant thing, moving with the weight
of mountains And you stare at it, you
feel it; you scream, you pray, you weep;
you hold your hands to your God, You
grow mad: but the Shadow moves like
Time. ike the sun, and the planets II
the sky. It rolls over you. and it rolls
on; and then you cry out no more.
1T is that way in my Valley. The
Shadow is the Shadow Of Death"
In his Introduction to the book "S."
writes:
I'm appearance Stirling was q tall,
dark-haired boyle was really only
boy-with a singularly beautiful face
and a strange. wistful expression of the
eyes that I think will haunt me as long
as I live That he was a lonely spirit
will be plain enough from his writings.
he lived among the poverty haunted
thousands of this city. without $50 he
told mel speaking to a living soul for
week Financially ! could not help him
for, though he was poor. I was scarce
( " less SO
After detailing how Stirling found
time TO finish his work Of love and
then prepared for suicide IS" ends the
introduction thus
There remains only to say a few
words as to the Journal Tt is scrawled
upon old note books and loose sheets of
paper The matter. although a diary.
contains odd bits of his Writings-one Of
two letters to me which he had me send
back. and some extracts from an essay
which a friend of mine was offering at
that time to magazines in the hope Of
placing it for him. There is a problem
about the work which I leave to others
to solVe-hOW much of it was written s
dated, and how much afterward, as a
piece of art, as a testament Of his Sor-
row. Parts of it have struck me as
having been composed in the latter way,
and the last pages, Of course. imply as
much.
Extraordinary pages they are TO me
That a man who was about TO take his
life should have written them is one of
the strangest cases of artistic absorp-
ton I know of in literature But Arthur
Stirling was a man lost in his art just
nothing in life had other meaning to
him. To quote the words he loved. from
the last of his heroes. he longed for ex-
cellence as the lion longs for his food
so he lived and so he worked; the
world had no use for his work, and SO
he died.