News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1913-06-18
FOUND "A GENIUS
BY ARTHUR HAMILTON.

lie lived in a cheap boardin
house and kept soul and body to
gether by doing the work of a lit
erary hack Sometimes he did Iittl
desultory tasks for newspapers, bu
never succeeded in connecting him
self with a pay roll Once he hat
been given a commission to write
little skit for a vaudeville stunt, ant
this was his undoing-if so sorry {
failure gould be undone. In work
ing it up he had found it necessary
to familiarize himself with the
technique of playwriting and it fas.
cinated him. Then the stunt was
a decided success and the man who
wrote it not only realized more
money from it than he had
from any other literary effort in his
life, but also saw the possibilities of
dramatic expression both in an ar
tistic and a financial sense. And so
he came to be a slave of the play
wright's itch. And he wrote and
wrote and wrote and starved and
pinched and still wrote. But his
skits were not accepted and his plays
were returned by the managers and
their readers.
He became more seedy and more
gaunt and more impossible-fnally
he became unconsciously hopeless.
But he worked on because he was
the slave of Genius and was COM
PEELED to follow the law of his being.
She was the child of love and
hope. Her mother was the wife
Of Hincllley, the shoemaker around
the corner, the most patient, indus
trious and hopeless of the relics of
q bygone time before machinery had
deprived good mechanics of their
kingdom. Perhaps Hinckley was
her father Most people believed not.
There were rumors Of a gallant
stranger who had sojourned for a
time in the neighborhood and looked
with glowing eyes upon the shoe
makers wife. And she, who never
had had her romance, had it then,
so the gossips whispered. And the
handsome stranger faded away into
the realm of dreams and after
time daughter was born to the
Bhoemaker's wife. The daughter
was so different from the shoemaker
and his pretty wife that more than
one doubt was whispered as to her
paternity. But the shoemaker new
er doubted and she grew up as
Nora Hinckley-the apple Of his
EYE.
In the very prime of her splendid
beauty-a beauty enhanced and
chastened by the very essence of OPP
timism--she crossed the path of the
struggling playwright. Some deep
chord in her nature drew her to him
as the needle to the north. She was
an occasional helper for Mrs. Simp-
son, who kept the cheap boarding
house where he lived. She entered
MS life as a ray of sunshine. At |
the lowest ebb of his fortune she
brought warmth and hope and cheer.
She laughed at the hopeless clouds
which overhung, and she believed in
aim and his aspirations. Recognize
ing a sympathetic spirit, his starved |
nature unfolded under the warmth
Of her appreciation, and he discov-
cred to her depths and shoals and
angles which other persons never
lad seen or suspected.
AS she beheld these revelations a
great awe and a great love entered
her heart and soul. She saw his
great and heroic soul naked and |
free from the sordid limitations of |
his life, and she bowed down and
Torshiped with the devotion given
only to women of her type. And I'M
der the spell of her appreciation and
the shackles dropped
away from him and his genius held |
FULL sway.
All, this involved many weary
months and when he realized fully
the great love he bore the blithesome
bass, the great JOY of the discovery
burned at once into sharpest pain as
he realized the hopelessness of his
passion. How was he, who could
scarcely keep his own soul and body |
together, hope to care for another
and to assume the responsibilities of
a family?
But she never despaired. For her
always was the golden day in sight
shen his genius would be recognized
and their dreams be realized.