10
THE CBANTON TMBUWE 8ATUB0AT 'HOBHtNG. JUNE t, 1896.
- -: - "
Corf right, ISC. tT Baeheller,
, , pART j
"It's no use Sturman, I shall never get
it finished at least, to my liking and
Sylvia's. It's five years now since 1
made the first sketch for It, and there It
Is, complete In every detail as far as
manual skill and technical knowledge
can make it, and yet It's not a picture.
There's- something wanting that only
genius can give It. The figures are cor
rect, but they're not alive. There's no
sight in their eyes, no movement in
their limbs. No, it's not a picture, and
I'm not an artist only a successful
Illustrator, and that's all there is to be
said about it"
"Except that Carlisle's definition ot
genius would hardly fit your case, for if
ever mortal man had an Infinite capaci
ty for taking pains you have, March."
"Yes, Sydney would certainly be a
genius If Carlyle had been right. I
thing the fates have made most aggra
vating division of the talents between
us. They have given him the faculty ot
re-creation and almost perfect skill In
execution, while they have given me
the tormenting gift of dreams and de-
"IN WHICH TOU VOURSELF
WOULD BE THE BRIGHTEST
ANGEL."
Iled me utterly the power of reproduc
tion. Now, If, Instead of being brother
and sister, we could Just be rolled into
one, either Sydney would be a great
artist, or I should be well, able to
write as well as dream, and then I
should live In a heaven of my own crea
tion." "In which you would yourself be the
brightest angel!"
The words slipped out almost before
John Sturman knew that he had Ipoken
them. His lips had of their own mere
motion echoed what he was saying in
his soul at the moment. They Drougni
a Just perceptably deeper color into Syl
via March's cheeks and a faint flash into
the deep gray eyes that were looking
at his from under the srtalght, dark,
finely-drawn eyebrows. Her brother
saved her from the awkwardness of re
plying tO'such a speech from a man
she has. only lately refused, albeit in
the friendliest fashion, to marry, by
saying:
"That's not at all badly put for you,
Sturman, though it eems to sound a
bit queer from a man who defines poetry
as the pearl ot literature because it is
the result of disease."
"I'm quite consistent," said Sturman,
half smiling and half serious. "What I
ought not to have said Just now was the
rrsult of disease heart disease."
"Now you've made it worse," said Syl
via, gravely.
"What? The disease? That couldn't
be worse."
"Suppose we change the subject or
get back to our muttons," said Sylvia,
looking, more serious than her words.
"Now, tell me, have you ever heard a
satisfactory - definition ot this ' some
thing that Sydney and I seem to want
so badly; this: mysterious gift of .'the
gods that people call genius without
knowing what they are talking about?"
"No, I haven't; and if I did hear one
It would probably be so far above my
head, that I should not understand it."
"That's only your vanity, Sturman,"
Raid March. "I think I've told you be-
' THIS WAS MARCUS ALQAR,
fore that these aggressive assertions of
mediocrity savor somewhat strongly of
the pride that apes humility. But, to
come to the concrete, I think there's
- something very like genius in this new
book of Marcus Algar's that I'm Illus
trating. That fellow has a great fu
ture before him If his twenty pounds a
thousand words doesn't make him
(reedy and start him off writing him
self out, as it has done with one or two
others one could name."
"Or If he doesn't get the notion that
he has 'a mission In literature and take
to climbing hills," said Sylvia, demure
ly.,, "By the way, I suppose you haven't
forgotten, Sydney, that the new genius
Is coming to tea this afternoon to dis
cuss those last sketches of yours."
"No, I haven't forgotten. Don't go
Human. No, you really mustn't I par
ticularly want you to meet Algar. Syl
via, tell him to sit down and behave
himself. Ah! there he is. "Talk of an
sin,
... 4J I
.
Johnson and Btchellen
A ring and well-composed fantasia
on the knocker sounded as he spoke,
and a few moments later the door of the
studio opened. As Sturman rose he
saw Sydney go forward with out
stretched hand to greet a tall, slightly
built, perfectly-dressed young fellow,
fair-haired and dark-eyed.wlth the com
plexion of a boy and the face of a wo
manat least It would have been a wo
man's face, he thought, but for a cer
tain strength of brow and chin and two
little perpendicular lines between the
eyebrows, which would not have quite
become a woman.
This was Marcus Algar, le succes de
l'heure, as they would have called him
In Prance the writer, unknown the
day before yesterday, whose first book
was selling In thousands, .despite the
fact that it didn't even hint at the
Seventh comr-.;indment, and hadn't a
chapter that either the British matron
or the young person could condemn
openly with a view to dwelling fondly
on it in secret.
The reviewers already called their no
tices of his work "appreciations," and
were almost falling over each other in
their haste not to be last or least loud in
his praise. Far-seeing editors were
competing for his unwritten works, and
literary agents were scheming subtly
for the honor of standing between him
and them.
In a word Marcus Algar was the man
of the hour, as other men and women
had been of previous hours. The Vaga
bonds had entertained him and the au
thors had dined him and John Stur
man knew all this, and if he had had all
the wealth of Kimberly he would have
given it ceerfully to stand in his shoes,
for he did not possess that priceless
gift of literary expression, that God
given, unlearnable art, the want of
which meant to him the difference be
tween Sylvia's friendship, which had
been his for years, and her love, which
as she had told him, could be given only
to the twin soul for whose advent hers
was waiting, the Ideal she had not. yet
met, unless and as he looked at Marcus
Algar and thought of that wonderful
book of his, all the evil spirits that lurk
behind -the rose bushes in the Garden of
Love seemed to come out of their hiding-places
and take possession of his
soul.
He made his excuses and got away aa
soon as he decently could, because he
wasn't the sort of man who could chat
ter cheerful trivialities when his soul
was full- of bitterness, and the earth's
base seemed subtle and the pillars of
the firmament rottenness to him.
He was a strong, straightforward,
clean-hearted, clear-headed man, rich,
well read and well educated, but with
no more romance in his being than was
Inspired by his .almost life-long and
now hopeless love for the sister of his
old schoolfellow and friend, Sydney
March, this girl with the soft chestnut
hair and big dreamy gray eyes whom he
had worshiped as a boy and loved as a
man, In his own plain, honest manly
fashion only to learn, as he had learned
but a few days before, that that
wretched transcendent soul-theory of
matrimony of hers was to condemn him
to stand by and see her give herself to
some one else Just because he lacked the
one faculty that she place!' above all
others. . , '
It was maddening to be so near and
yet so far, for, with the confidence born
of their life-long friendship, she had
even told him that she liked him so
much "in other ways" that she really
would have tried to love him if she could
and she had said this so innocently
and so sweetly that It had hurt him
more than the most scornful refusal
could have done, for It did not even
leave him the poor consolation of get
ting angry either with her or with hlnv
self. . '
If Mephistopheles had come to his
side Just then, as he was walking home
rrom March's studio" in Edith Villas,
West Kensington, to the big house In
Bolton gardens which he had made so
beautiful in the hope that Sylvia would
one day reign over it-sind offered him
that one gift of Marcus Algar's In ex
change for everything else on the usial
terms, he would have struck the bar
gain there and then, coute que coute,
for Sylvia's sake and yet, If he had
only known it, Mephlstophclea was a
good deal nearer to his elbow Just then
than he had any idea of his being.
Altogether his walk home was any
thing but a pleasant one, for, do what
he would, he couldn't keep his thoughts
from wandering back to March's studio,
and picturing Sylvia and Algar wander
ing together in that magical Garden of
Romance, which he could only look
over the fast-closed gate that only the
key of Genius could unlock.
PART It ! "
But when he got home there were two
letters waiting for him, which speedily
sent the lover into the background, and
brought the man of affairs to the front.
One was from Brlndisl, and the other
from Calcutta, but both had come by
the same mall. The first was from his
younger brother Cecil, who had been
for the last three years in the Calcutta
branch of the great firm of which John
Sturman was the head, to tell him that
he was coming home invalided, and the
second was from a doctor who had at'
tended Cecil.
There were four large pages of for
eign note paper closely covered, and
when he got to the end, he turned back
and read it over again, and then he put
it down and sat for nearly half an hour
without moving a muscle, staring
straight before him into the fire, and
conscious of nothing but a single sen
tence', which he could not more get out
ot his brain than he could have helped
hearing it if Mephlstopheles himself
had been whispering it Into his ear:
"Perhaps the . most extraordinary
property of the drug Is the unmistak
able power that it has of altering either
the mental or moral character, and
sometimes both, of Its victims, and
isaklng those under its influence the ex
act opposite of what Wey'arelri "a ior-1
militate!" -,.
It was a curious and perhaps more
than usualy merciless irony of fate
that Mephlstopheles chould come to
John Sturman In the guise of his young
er brother, and yet such was lifrnlly
the case. The plain facts, aa represent
ed in the doctor's letter, were tUat
Cecil had become a victim to the
haschisch habit, and as soon as he had
discovered this he had sent him straight
home, knowing as he did that if he was
to have a chance of rescue he must be
almost constantly under .the eye of
some one for whom he had both affec
tion and respect.
He had himself suggested his elder
brother, the only near relation he had
left, as soon as the matter had been put
plainly before him, and he had been
told that bis one chance of life and
sanity depended on his placing himself
unreservedly in the hands of some one
who could bring a strong, healthy mind
and an unimpaired will to the task of
supervising the gradual diminution ot
doses which, as it were, marked the
milestones along the only possible road
to a cure.
The doctor's letter had consisted for
the most part of precise instructions
as to the course of treatment to be pur
sued, and If it had not been for that one
fatal sentence which had set John Stur
man thinking so hard the afternoon he
read It, alt might have been well.
But there it was, and the work that
It had begun was rapidly completed by
the inevitable conversations which he
had with Cecil on the haschisch and its
works. He kept the drug safely in his
own care, measuring out the doses with
scrupulous exactness, and noting with
a fatally growing Interest their effects
on his patient.
Cecil would come down to breakfast
dull and languid and headachy. He
would take his three doses each one
ever so little smaller than the previous
one at ten, two, and six. At lunch he
would be well and cheerful, and at din
ner and all through the evening bril
liant In thought and expression, and
he would live two lives, his own and
then they would sit over the fire In their
library and smoke, and Cecil would
tell him of his visions; and weave stor
ies splendid with all the gorgeous
Imagery of eastern life, and then when
Cecil had gone to bed he would sit on
alone and think, and, unconsciously to
himself, and before an atom of the drug
had passed his lips, the subtle poison
worked, and at last the struggle ended,
and he yielded, almost before he knew
that it had begun in deadly earnest.
He had been to tea that afternoon at
the studio, and, though nothing direct
or positive had been said, he had tntui
tvely felt that Sylvia was fast coming
to the belief that in Marcus Algar she
had at last met the twin-soul, the in
carnate Ideal for which hers had been
waiting, and, from a remark or two
dropped.perhaps purposely and with the
kindliest Intention, by Sydney, that the
young genius seemed also to have found
his own Ideal In Sylvia.
Nay, he had even at the last minute
put back the publication of his new
book, and, with a few deft and master
ly touches, had recreated his heroine in
the living likeness of Sylvia, and in a
few days more all the world would be at
her feet, drawn there by the master
hand which had painted this other-self
of hers so perfectly that henceforth
she would live two lives, er own and
the greater and brighter one that
Algar's genius had given her.
It was this that had brought his
struggle to an end. His rival, as he per
force regarded him, had drawn the
magic circle of his genius round his
darling, and so, In a sense, had already
made her his own. What did it matter
then to him, what became of the life
that was henceforth to be a desert for
him?
The enchantment of his hopeless love,
turned all the strength of nature which
should have saved him against him;
IF MEPHISTOPHELES HIMSELF
HAD BEEN WHISPERING IN
HIS EAR.
and where a weaker man might have
resisted through fear, he took the fatal
step, Impelled by his own perverted
strength. .
The night after Cecil had gone to bed,
he went, to his cabinet, and took what
was, for a beginner, a heavy dose of
haschisch. Then he locked the door
and sat down in his easy chair by the
fire, to await results.
Soon a delightful languor began to
steal over his physical senses. He closed
hi eyes and his mind seemed to become
detached from his body. A great un
earthly light shown Into the darkness
of the despair which had been clouding
all his life, and, as the darkness van
ished, the chalnB that had bound his in
tellect down to the commonplace, were
loosened, and It rose at a leap into the
long-forbidden, glowing realms of ro
mance. Then his eyes opened, and he saw a
strango vision. One of those dream-
stories of Sylvia's, which she had told
to him in her halting, Imperfect way.
and which she would almost have given
her life to be able to set forth in worthy
language, came to him, brilliant and
vivid, instinct with the poetry ot the most
exquisite realism. The charcters sprang
into incarnate being before him, with such
life-likeness, that ho seemed to see and
recognize them as though, thy had been
old acquaintances,1 as they ' moved and
spoke amidst the scenes that Sylvia had
Imagined for them without being able
to reproduce them; and all was so real
and vivid and beautiful that It seemed
as though he were actually living in that
vision-world which she would have paint
ed it she could.
Why should he not paint It for her since
ho saw It so plainly before him? . There
was his writing-table and his chair ready
for him. In his early clerking days he
had learned shorthand as a convenience,
and he had kept it up since as a hobby,
and, however swiftly the glowing sen
tences might come td him, his pencil
would keep .pace with them.. -
He made an effort to rise from tils chair
and go to his table, but, before he reached
it. it seemed to him that, he was already
there.- It was curious, but he put It
down to the effects of the drug, and
caught himself wondering what was go
ing to happen next, He saw himself sit'
ting In the chair, and he went and looked
ever his own shoulder and saw the pencil
already flying over the paper. Sheet after
sheet he read as it was (Inland and threw
aside, and hour after hour he stood there
reading and wondering what it all meant.
until at last it was finished, and his other
self got up and looked at him.
He saw now that his face was ashes
gray and t)ep scored with the lines drawn
by intense mental effort,' Beads of sweat
were standing out thickly on bis brow.
and his eyes were burning with a fierce
light that might have, been either insan
ity or genius. " '
Then he saw his Hps move Into a faint
and almost ghastly smile, and heard his
own voice to say to him, as though speak
ing from a distance:
'Well, that's a good night' work, and
I think It's about time to go to bed.. Good
night !"
Then his two-beings seemed to fdoe to.
gether again and become one. He lit his
hand-lamp as usual, turned the gas out
and went to bed, and scarcely was his
head on the pillow than he fell into a deep,
heavy, dreamless sleep.
when he awoke the next morning an
that remained to him of his experiment
HE WENT AND LOOKED OVER HIS
OWN SHOULDERS.
in visions was a slight tightness across
his forehead and a dim recollection of hav
ing dreamed a very wonderful dream.
That the dream was a reality never oc
curred to him for a moment.
He got up half an hour later than usual,
feeling a trifle repentant and perhaps Just
a little ashamed of himself, but thinking
that, after all, he had got pretty cheaply
out of what Seemed to him now to be
the greatest danger of his life.
He had breakfast with Cecil, as usual,
and then went to the library. He found
tho door locked, a circumstance which
struck him as being rather strange, and
mechanically put his hand Into his pocket
for the key. It was there, and he opened
the door and went In. On the threshold
he stopped and started slightly, and then
he looked round to see if anyone had seen
him come into the room.
Then he went In and locked the door
again behind him. His wrlting-tabla
and the floor beside it were Uttered with
Bheets of paper.
PART III. '
He crossed the room and picked one of
them up with a hand that was not very
steady and began to read it. There could
be no doubt as to what it was. It was a
fragment of one of Sylvia's dream-stor
ies written by a master hand. He read
the page through, and then picked up
some more at random, and went and sat
down in his armchair by the ashes of last
night's Arc, and read page after page, dis
connected as they were, and yet most
evidently parts of one beautiful whole.
Then he laid them on the floor beside him
and strove to collect his thoughts so that
he might read the riddle, and bit by bit
the remembered fragments of his vision
came together and took shape, and then
the truth dawned upon him1.
What the Calcutta doctor had said
about the drug was true. Under its in'
fluenco he had been the exact reverse of
his normal mental self, and the net result
of his experiment, as far as he could see,
had been the division of his being Into
two separate entitles, one of which was
still the sober, practical, commonplace
man of affairs, and the other the dreamer
of gorgeous dreams, the genius dowered
with the supreme gift of literary expres
sion in its highest form and mott perfect
capacity and yet for all that an unreal
ity, a specter that came out of the dark'
nees of a drug-Induced slumber to work
its wondrous spells and then vanish back
Into the snadows.
Only too clearly did he see this, for tho
more he read of his own work the more
horribly apparent became the, truth that,
not to save his soul alive, could he In his
natural self put two of those glowing,
perfectly worded sentences together.
He got up and collected the sheets, and
put them in order, and then read the
story through from beginning to end.
He had learned enough of the art by retifl
lng to see that it was a lltrary gem.
enoush even of Itself to found a reputa
tion upon, and this was his work or at
least the work of that other self of his
which tho potent magic of the drug had
called into belrnr.
And If It had done this once why should
it not do it many times? Here was Syl
via's own story glorified into a splendid
reality and by him! Was not this a proof
that this other self ot his was in truth
that twin soul which hers had, by her own
confession, been waiting to meet and
mate with?
He folded up the sheets and put them
into his pocket. At 11 his brougham came
as usual to tho door, and he took them to
the city and gave them to his confidential
clerk to transcribe on his typewriter.
That evenlg he paid a visit to the studio,
and asked Sylvia to read his first essay
in fiction.
Not quite a year had passed since John
Sturman had made his first experiment
In visions, and during those swiftly puss
lmr months he had lived on earth and In
heaven, and not Infrequently he had de
scended Into the nethermost hell of hu
man suffering. He had carried on his
business affairs as of second nature, yet
with an ever lessening Interest in them.
That specter genius of his had won him
fame with all Its Intoxicating accompany
ments, and he had no cause to envy Mar
cus Algar now, either In his new art or his
old love, for his own fame was fresher
and brighter than his, and Sylvia, all In
nocent of its terrible origin, had welcomed
the awakening of his long-dormant genius
as a heaven-sent revelation; and so lis
latest wooing had not been in vain.
Sydney's picture, finished at last under
his inspiration, was hanging on the line at
Burlington house, the wonder anu aa
miration of the thousands who hnd read
the marvelous romance which he had
woven around It, and for him the whole
HI3 14TEST WOOING HAD NOT
BEEN IN VAIN,
earth had been transfigured until one of
those inevitable hours came when he
stood alone with his own reproachful and
accusing soul on the edge of the deep,
black unbridgeable gulf at which 'the
flower-itrewn path of his love-and fame
must come day infallibly end, for that
spectral other self of his had to be fed
every day .with ever-Increasing doses of
the poison which ere long must slay both
it anu mm ana then what of Sylvia? .
They were to be married In a month,
and meanwhile he was . finishing the
novel ror wnicn an the world was Walt
ins. What was to happen? Would the
remnant of his manhood and self-control
compel him to save his darling from aim
self While yet there .was time. ' or would
he take, her hand -Irrevocably In his and
lead her for awhile along that enchanted
path, knowing as he did what the end ot
the brief Journey must be?
What his own answer to the Inexorable
question might have been there is no tell
ing, neither is there any need to guess at
it, for the fates themselves answered It
in their own way.
. One night he sat down to write the
last pages ot his book. For awhile the
Ideas came bright and thronging as ever,
wedding themselves In harmonious union
ot sound sense with words which flowed
so easily from his pen. Then, Just on the
threshold of the last scene, his pen
stopped. The splendid vision whose real
isation was to have been the crowning
glory of his work grew dim and blurred
and dull as the night-clouds from which
the glory of the sunset has faded away.
He stared about him, dazed and wonder
ing like a man suddenly awakened from a
dream. Then he turned back and read the
pages he had Just written, and could not
even recognize his own work. He saw
that it was beautiful, but it was utterly
strange to him. Who had written it, and
how did It come there on his table with
the Ink scarcely dry on the paper? Ho
had forgotten.
Then his eye fell upon a few little greenish-brown
lozenges lying at his elbow. A
swift gleam of remembrance falling on his
mind like a lightning flash through sudden
night. Hehlnd him lay the path of his
brief, dear-bought glory, strewn With
flowers that now were withered, and be
fore him the gulf, and beyond that a black
Infinity. .,
He gathered up the lozenges and swal
lowed them all at a gulp. Soon the fast
fading fires" leapt up into a blaze of light,
wild, lurid and dazzling. Visions of .chaotic
splendor chased each other in headlong
huste through the death-dance of his ex
piring senses. He had a dim conscious
ness of seizing his pen and driving it over
the paper as though he were writing for
his very life and more. Then, like the fall
ing of a black pall before his eyes, came
darkness darker than night, and he felt
himself falling, bound and blinded. Into
Immeasurable depths, through an eter
nity compressed into moments, and mo
ments stretched out Into etornitles.
When Cecil, now cured and hale and
sane, came and found him in the morning,
he was dead. The writing tablo was
strewn with pages filled with the most
piteous nosense, and under the hand,
HE FTCI.T HIMSELF FALLING, BOUND
AND BLINDED, INTO IMMEAS
URABLE DEPTHS.
which still held his pen was the last page
of all, half covered with an unintelligible
line, which was the most eloquent of all
the lines his pen had ever traced,
l The End.
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I
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DAT e.
Ovsr 16,000 in Ui.
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SCRANTON, PA.
sjsjwwsaTsi r ntTf wwt1,E-
WILLIAM S. MILLAR,
Alderman 8th Ward, Scranton
ROOMS 4 AND 3
OAS AND WATER CO. BUILDINO,
CORNER WYOMING AVE. AND CENTER ST.
OFFICE HOURS from 7.30 a. m. to pJ
tn. (1 hour Intermission tor dluner suit
upper.)
Psrtlculsr Attention fllven to Collectlsnea.
Prompt feettlcment Guaranteed. Voar Bualw
sea la Respectfully Solicited. Tolephoas i