The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-10-17
JOHN RANDOLPH
A UNIQUE FIGURE
Career of a Strange, Able, and
Sharp-Tongued Virginian
of the Old Days

BY :. e.. "OolhN, MI. OAAs r, n. y.
II has been said Of men of brilliant
eanius hat they are eccentric and pc
culiar, and have a morbid sensibility,
q c was said Of Plato who had the
-beautiful melancholy Of discomfort
some consider these peculiarities as
irfrmities rather than the jewels of
nrnat minds. Poe and Byron, among
noats. were men of morbid conSt1tu-
lions. capricious tempers n fantastic
md romantic taste and sentiment. zoe
was in a theater during a dreary WIN
ter night listening to a weird
inlay Astounding in ghosts and witches,
when he suddenly became excited, left
his seat rushed into the street amid a
nelting driving sleet and snoWstorm.
when he did not return, his 1rlend
who wa with him vent out to look
for him, but he was to be
found. He entered a carriage and
drove down the street and soon found
him standing by a lamp-post IN the
street. scribbling on an old envelope
and he was found to be writing The
raven" his great poem that has rem
dered his na1ne mort and Is one or
the most sparkling gems that has en-
riched the literature OF any age or
cline. He was seized with the desire
to write the poem, from witnessing the
n0ndiuIdl S1S1lCo LII IN
friend, fearing for his health by being
eyposed in the storm, placed him in
the carriage and carried him to his
room. where he completed the poem
While the spell was on him.
Alexander, Caesar, n
Napoleon were all eplleptlcs, and at
times were not far removed from the
tsorderland of insanity Schiller, the
greatest of Germany's literary men at
ter Goethe, was a ard student n
kept such late hours that his friend
Streicher, solicitous about his health,
asked the night Waterman to call MIN
if his lamp was burning after one
o'clock and tell him it was time to go
10 bed. After the Waterman had
called Schiller and told him to put out
his light, the poet was heard to muir
muir in a low voice, The good n
true Streicher is an honest soul n
means we'll and does net know how ne
has injured me todaT. l was IN the
grandest flow of enthusiasm, all the
discomfort and necessities Of life had
disappeared; / WAS no longer colo;
there were no more tormenting cred
itors, no cares and no pangs or love;
l was in the heaven of Father Zeus.
And the messenger of my friend comes
and calls me back to the cold, limos
pitable earth. The fire Of my enthus-
1asn1 is eXtinguished and now L am
sensible that there is no fire in the
stove mo fire." sighed Schiller,
and no WOO to make one. Poor tee
BILE man. The fire Of the soul does
not suffice to warm the ~shlverlng
body and the prose of life ever recalls
thee from the Elysian fields of poet
ry.' Now here was a man In the
'~grandeSt flow of enthusiasm, > in thy
heaven, Father Zeus,'' in the 'E1ysian
fields of poetry oblivious to all
earthly objects, 10 longer feeling the
pangs of colo or hunger. The vulgar
would call this state in a man eccen-
tricity, but these are the richest fruits
of genius. The reason why the ordl-
nary man kinks men o. genius are
eccentric is that the great mass OF meE
have not the poetic imagination and
the romantic sentiment Of the men OF
genius, and never o with them to
those Hyperborean regions where the
people live longer than any other NOR
tails and pass their time in music and
dancing. and
Breathe the snow-white sprinkling OF
that feathery air,
The children Of the Pole reSpife
in those enchanted lands
Where life IS all a spring and
North winds never blow
Or that other land where the elm.
mortals at their banquet lay and the
air Hebe, the ~cup-bearer of the skies
passed the bowl with the Liquid spar
kle of starry dew"
While with the foliage hung
Like luscious grapes
A thousand buds Of light
Culled from the gardens of the Ga
lazy"
You fellows who live in the low
ground Of malarial regions, soar tt
the regions Of the geniuse'
and the poets, and you viii
not think the men Of genius ar
eccentric, but they are only in thell
natural element. The little busy be
extracts the sweets from the flower
and distiis it into honey, so our goo<
Heavenly Father has endowed hi
children with cultured tastes, SO tina
they can enjoy the beauty, the gran
deur and the sublimity of nature
the vast rolling ocean, the lofty noun
tain peak, browning with brow o
Q and cap of snow" and the grey