The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-05-21
EVENING CHAT
BIZ RUTH CAMERON.

In a magazine criticism of the work
of Clyde Fitch. the great American
dramatist who died recently, there was
one simple little sentence that some
how struck me as marvelously preg-
nant and suggestive.
This was it:
"Clyde Fitch was one of those myr-
lad unhappy men of genius who de-
served better of themselves than they
got.''
Instead of ''the myriad unhappy
men of genius 1 think the critic
might have well said, ''the myriad
unhappy men and women every
where"
your biographer have the right to say
of you, The deserved more of himself
than he GOT?
Isn't that a rather good question to
stop, in the unthinking. get-things-
Idone-at-any-cost, routine rush of your
daily life, to put to yourself?
I have a friend who writes Sunday
specials for a big sensational news
paper. I met him the other day. He
told me about his work. 81 am max
ing more money than almost any of
the men who graduated ir- my class, :"
he said proudly.
He is a man of great talent if not
genius. His college professor and all
who knew his mind prophesied great
literary future for him.
He expected it for himself.
And now he is happy because he is
making more money than almost any
of the men who graduated In his class.
I wonder if there don't come mo-
ments to him when he realizes in a
sudden grey flash of truth that he de-
serves better of himself than he is
getting.
In Pinero's latest play, "Mid-Chan-
mel" the heroine says to the hero,
"Our marriage was doomed long long
I1a =
from the very beginning from
the moment we agreed that we'd never
be hampered in our career with any
'brats of children If there had been
have made a different woman of me,
Theo, such a different wcman-and
different man of you.
But, no; everything in the earlier
years of our marriage was sacrificed
to coming money and then
when we had succeeded we had COM
menced to draw apart from each
other. Oh, yes, we were happy in
those climbing days-gree dily, fever
ishly happy, but. we didn't look at the
time when we should need another in
terest to bind us together"
Up on the hill just beyond our house
live a man and a woman of whom
Pinero might have written those
words, they are such a perfect descrip-
ton of them.
man and woman see the man across
the street leading his three Riddles out
for Sunday morning walk, or the
.lady across the street cuddling the
youngest of the three Riddles, who is a
marvellous composite of pinkness and
goodness and chubbiness and dimples
Il wonder if on such occasions that
man and that woman don't realize that
they deserve something better of
themselves than they have gotten.
The man of brains and energy who
mulls along all his life in position
where brains and energy avail moth
ing, simply because he hasn't the cour-
age and grit to demand better things
of life at the pistol point Of risk, the
girl who marries the man she does not
love simply because she IS afraid she
will be an old maid. the woman of
brains and ability who let's her mar
riage be the absolute end-of all self
culture, of all intellectual interests and
of all attempts to DO something for
those in the world less fortunate than
she-surely all these people must have
some moments when they know they
are of those who deserve better of
themselves than they get