The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1910-09-17
PRACTICE AND ART.

The Newport News Times-Herald, noting the
death of John +. Scanlon by suicide attributes
to him the authorship Of the rhyrned prose run
by many papers unde the caption, "tnce Walt,
the Poet Philosopher, and thereupon breaches
serious holnly emphasizing the old doctrine,
physician Cure Thyself'. According to the
Times Herald, Scanlon or walt Mason, was
good preacher-for other people. He IT SAYS,
was the apostle of cheer, of happiness, of human
helpfulness. His readers. it declares, who were
comforted by his homely philosophy OF love and
kindness are shocked at the manner Of his death
and all but persuaded to believe that all his OPP
timism was hollow mockery. The sweet singer
had tragedy hidden beneath his assurances of
the joy in living and doing. The rose that
doomed so fair possessed a worm i the bud.
About Walt Mason was a touch of bitter and
pessimistic vanity. What becomes, excams the
Times Herald, of ali the goodness that he preach
ed What profit in all his brave and bubbling
words, stopped now with the dust of dcspairl
incidentally. we do not believe that Walt
Mason has passed over. His stuff, at any
rate, is still running in its accustomed places.
Even as we write We have before our eyes the
latest from his pen, wherein he confesses, Il
like the good old spcnd-thrift way to blow ones
troubles day by day; | like to waste wealth as
it comes, in small and ,mobstrusive sums that
better than 10 skimp and shave, and pinch, econ
omse and save for months together like Ounce,
and then blow in your wad at once Incident
ally, also, we do not greatly admire the public
that will ''fall for" the sort OF stuff of which
| this is good example, and enrich the man who
! spins it off by the yard. The want of prin-
ciple in a man who eaters to depraved taste in
sentmentality or humor is as deplorable, if not
as vicious, as a similar want of principle in the
demagogue who depraves a talent to incite the
passion of the mob Yellow poetry is quite as
unovelv, if not as hurtful, the yellow journal
ism. We should be far from holding up 'Walt
Mason" as a public benetactor, either in the way
of sentiment or taste And the best evidence,
apart from the fact that we understand he is
"A fat man living in Emporia, instead of lean
man dead in Philadelphia, that he has not com
mitted suicide is that he is so manifestly after
just those 'scads'' which in his hybrid prose he
so constantly processes to despise.
{. But suppose that Walt Mason had message
of cheer to the world. Suppose he sang and
sang, with a true note and clean Inspiration, to
, the end of lifting up the hearts of men. Sup
pose after all that, he could not find it in nature
longer to take his own advice. Is for this rea
: son, his work mockery! Is the gift the less
valuable because the giver cannot profit by il
. himself. Is the sentiment strained because the
man who sets it IN motion cannot extract from
life the sweetness he sees in il! l. a man a
hypocrit because he refuses soutly to the end TIC
confess his own miseryl We hold the conven-
, tonal view that suicide is cowardice but even in
the case of one who finally confesses defeat, is ii
not the part of n brave man to put on bold
front Is it not heroic to laugh when the soul is
sick Is it not high sort Of genius to keep
eyes open to beauty in others when there is no
beauty in oneself!
Granting that Walt Mason is dead-which VIC
do not belieye--and that he is worth while
which we do not admits not the art which can
find expression apart from and beside the i'll.
dividual of whom it is born, the purest and most
ilnmincd form of truth. There is no sef-de
ception, no easy egotism, unconscious song
from heart that sings So sings bird in the
fSpringtime how much nobler the art of the hui
man bard who can pipe his Summers lay among
1.-The Winters snows'
1t was North Carolina genius who some
time since wrote and had set to music song
entitled, "A Smiling Heart Beneath Broken
Face; how nobler even than this difficult ac
accomplishment the task of the man who can SET
even his heartbreak to the measure of hope!