Newspapers / The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, … / Feb. 6, 1909, edition 1 / Page 8
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THE CHARLOTTE EVENING CHRONICLEr FEBRUARY 6, 1909, THE MAN: WHO SAW SPRING. . - BY JOHN G. NIEHARDT. Author; of "The lonesome Trail." (Copyright.) It was late In October when the Jennie Lucas cast off her cables at the Fort Union landing:, swung out In to the Missouri, and under high pres sure went "grunting and snorting southward. Old river men about the fort watched her trailing cloud of smoke until she had disappeared, then shook their heads and muttered dark prophecy. For although she was the lightest and fastest boat in the upper waters at that time (for which reason she was chosen to car ry a very important message from the Fort to St. Louis, yet no boat is so swift as the prairie wfnter and the winter was coming early that year. The old men read warnings upon the face of the heavens and sniffed treachery In the damp , south wind. They recalled other Octobers when the winter had swooped down sud denly; they spoke of blizzards; they recalled the names of companions who had perished; they talked of hunger. But the Lucas, laden heavily with an ever-decreasing cargo of firewood, and groaning through all her strained machinery, raced into the South. She had made only a hundred miles when a bolt head in-the boilers gave way under the abnormal pressure of team, and it became necessary to lay up for repairs. Jim Han way. the head engineer, worked uptn the boilers with a ner vous haste that attracted the atten tion of the captain. Take yoOr time. Jim." said the captain; "there's no hurry." "2o hurry?" Hanway grinned with twitching lips at the captain. "Take a look at the sky. will you? If we don't all turn up in some coyote's bel ly before spring, you can take me and this engine!" The captain endeavored to laugh pleasantly, but succeeded only in pro ducing a dry cackle. Certainly some thing had come oer Hanway. The tall, gaunt, good-natured engineer was no longer good-natured. There was a drawn, set look in his face, and the whole engine room seemed filled with some strange disquieting influence, some subtle emanation from over wrought nerves. The captai nwent up on- deck. "Jim's got a case of cold feet." he said to the pilot; "nerves all frayed out to a ragged edge. Talks about us all turning up in some coyote's belly before spring! What do you think of that for Hanway?" "The way he's been giving her the whip so far. he'll be blowing us to kingdom come more likely," said the pilot. "I yelled down the tube for less speed a dozen time3. and he went right on slapping the speed to her. "Want to look after him a bit. captain." Meanwhile Hanway worked ner vously at the boilers. He reinforced them wit hother bolts and belted them with iron hoops, all the while mut tering to himself. A deck hand, tot tering under a log of wood, ventured rushed to the thermometer and, strlk- i came down to go on duty Hanway to Jok'e with the engineer. Hanway turned upon him and snarled with a savage lifting of the up-r :ip. "If you roosters don't get this ngine room full of wood, before we start," he said. "I'll brain the last one of you." The "rooster" deposited his load and with drew at a trot. On the morning of the second1 day of the delay the Lucas aga'n started south. Hanway ba.v'ed up the t.ioe to the pilot, at the whe-;l: "Don't go yelline any more instructions down here to me! This boat Is going some wheres!" He turneJ to his cng'.ne. now throb bing mightily like an overtaxed heart. "Don't give up. old girl." ho mut tered. "Don't give up again! I know It's a killing pace, but hold together somehow!" In the late evening the Lucas ran foul of aT snag and ca nt rtT with a shattered paddlj wheel. Ihis re quired two days repairing, during which time It began t snow with great, wet. lazily tumbling flakes that fell melting upon the deck like soft kisses of betrayal. Hanway grew more and more nervous as he helped at the repairing of the paddles. "Are you sick. Jim ?" asked the cap tain kindly; for Hanway fumbled the tools with shaking hands and dropped them often. "To. not sick, cap." answered Han way with a strange tremor In his voice. "But It seenfs like I can feel omening coming something I don't know what something big and Mack and terrible moving down upon us! I know it's foolish." "Oh. this is Just a little flurry," said the captain soothingly. "Too early for real Vinter.Uim. Better go to bed awhile and let the second engineer run her tolnlght. You're" worn out." When the damage had been repair ed, the Lucas again started south with the second engineer 'at the throttle. The Lucas was now running night and day, for something of. the dread of Hanway had come upon the captain. In the middle of the night Hanway awoke with a start from a heavy sleep. He arose at once and went on deck, fr he had not undressed. The snow had ceased falling and a northwest wind with a keen knife edge smote Mm In the face. He listened for a moment to the chug-chug' of the re volving paddle wheels, the sigh of the waters about her sides, and the asth matic snore of the .exhaust.' Sudden ly he thought he caught the tinkling ttnl of small lcev particles. He In ga match, gazed for a moment horror-stricken upon the mercury. It registered 31 degrees! The match flared and went out. Hanway shivered in the sudden dark ness as though he had just gazed up on the face of a corpse. He glanced at th epilot house and saw the pilot swing a free ajrn about him to warm his numbed fingers. Hanway ran down the aft stairs and burst Into the engine room. He rushe d past the second engineer and glanced at the team gauge. It reg istered ten pounds less than he him self had been carrying. "Get to bed!" he hissed to the en gineer. "I don't go off till morning, Jim," replied the other kindly. "You go off now d'ye hear?" Hanway grasped the second engi neer by the shoulders, and, with the al dof a vigorous foot, hurled him bodily through the door, which he bolted. Then he strode over to the lounging firemen and lifted each to his feet with a violent kick. "I want steam!" he growled. "What d'you tlrlnk you're tending a tea kettle?" The firemen fell to work sullenly, and soon the Lucas felt the feverish will of her new master throbbing through her every fibre. Hanway stood before the steam gauge with his gaze fixed upon the rising Indicator. She" now carried firty pounds. With the reinforced boilers he figured that she could carry fifty-five; after that she would probably blow up. Fifty-one fifty-one and a half fifty-two fifty-three fifty-four fifty-four and a half Hanway, with his gloved hand on the lever of the safety valve, mutter ed to his engine: "One quarter more, old girl! Hang on! You can't go back on me now! It's a good race and we can win we can win if : " Hanway lifted the lever and the steam howled-out through the valve, filling the room with vapor. The in dicator had crept up within a hair's breadth of fifty-five. It now dropped back to fifty-four and a half. Han way closed the valve, and aagain the pressure mounted slowly toward the danger mark. Backward and for ward crept the indicator between the half and the number upon which Hanway gazed transfixed, his nervous hand clutching the lever. He was racing with the winter, and the whips of his own dread goaded him. In his overwrought imaginatloi he saw the pitiless Spirit of the Xorth bearing steadily down upon the flee ing little Lucas like a great white bird of prey. He knew what it meant to be overtaken five months of the great white waste and probably star vation. And so he was running, run ning. Down at St. Louis there was warmth and food and good cheer; and up in this savage wilderness there would be only the taunting devils of the frost and the hunger and the si lence. ( "Her,e, one of you!" he bawled to the firemen. "Scramble out on deck ! and tel me how the mercury stands!" One obeyed and came back with chattering teeth. "Twenty-nine," he said. "Work lively with that wood there!" snarled Hanway, again turning to the steam gauge. The Indicator had crept a hair's breath across the danger mark. He set his teeth and held the valce down until the needle register ed fifty-five and three-fuarters. "She'll stand It!" he muttered with a ner vous. "She's good for fifty-six!" As a man who rides a thoroughbred in a race for life and loves the good brute for responding to fhe spurs, so Hanway loved his engine. Curiously enough, he felt that he and the ma chinery were one being, an-i he caught himself gritting his teeth and groaning with the intense strain un der which the engine sobbed and whined. The boat was now quivering coolly knocked him through'the door. After that the crew fought shy of the engine room. ' "This is my first trip with the devil for engineer," explained the recently ejected, walkink the deck and nurs ing a bruised jaw.' "But he's sure making the Jennie dance!" All day Hanway stood at his engine, carefully scrutinizing every part and holding the steam up to the danger point. The boat tossed and groaned like a ma nwith a fever. With an occasional snarled command, he kept the weary firemen at work fetching wood fro mthe- decks and feeding the furnace. Ever and anon he asked for the reading of the thermometer. The mercury fell steadily. 27 25 24 22. The tireless pursuer was gaining upon him slowly, surely. But a strange exaltation seized upon Han way. The rage of the born fighter mounted to his head like a strong liquor, and a sense of super-human might ran through his muscles. In a dazed way he longed to meet hls-piti-less pursuer face to face and grapple with it. He would set his teeth in its neck! He would crush it with his arms! Then he laughed joylessly at his strange conceit. His adversary with an omnipotent Nothing an in tangible, nerveless, fearless, pitiless Everything an icy Abstraction, yet real as Death. And Hanway felt a transient thrill of Joy at the thought that he alone defied this subtle, ter rible Something this gigantic Foe that fought like a coward. In the evening, a fireman tottering engine and released the steam. Then, vaguely- realizing that the race was lost and his adversary upon him, his legs gave way, and the light in his brain went out quickly like astuffed candle. When he awoke the dirty daV was filtering through the grimy windows. He was alone Tn the engine room. He lay still for some time, blinking at the wan light. He could hear voices of . command up on deck and the creaking of windlasses. For a mo ment it seemed to him that he was already , dead and these were sounds above his grave. Then realization of the situation came upon him. The Lucas was on a bar, and the crew was making ready to spar her. off. He staggered to his feet, and with a mighty effort of his enfeebled mus cles shoved wood into the furnace. Then he set the pumps to work. They would need steam, he thought steam for the capstans. They would need steam. As for him he had lost. He no longer felt any Interest in the affair. He had fought a good fight and he had lost. He tottered up the. stairs and went on deck,. Considerable ice. was run ning. The bow of the Lucas was thrust far iip onto a bar and the ice was already lodging about her. He went to the thermometer and found the mercury at 5 degrees below zero. He grinned as it occurred to him that he had now been, dead five degrees! All night the crew heard the grind ing and chugging of the ice about the Lucas. It was the forging of the chain. The fugitive had been cap ! the night' crpt In through the thick ening snow habe scarcely perceived. The five men. sat huddled about the furnace in the engine room, listening for-the voices of their returning com panions. The wind boomed down the smokestacks and sKrieked through the supporting cables. Late in the night the captain pro posed a game of poker. All excepl Hanway sat in. But though they staked their summer's recklessly, the gaming spirit was dead. Once, when a big jackpot had been opened, with all hands staying, a violent gust of wind beat, at the door and howled hoarsely about the boat like the shouting of a desperate man. The second engineer dropped his cards face up, and, leaping to ; his feet. cried r "There! They're coming They yelled!" Then he dropped into his seat and groaned. And when the second pilot called an unusually stiff bet with a pair of trays fhe captain closed the game. Morning came a travesty of dawn The day passed a writhing, howling gray, shadow. And the night came- a mere deepening of the twilight, felt rather than seen. On the evening of the third day the storm fell and the eyllow sun went down smiling cyni under a load of wood, volunteered tured, and the captor was fastening Upon the slippery edge of the roof he stood bal anced upon his-toes like a ballet dancer." cally upon the ghastly storm swept spaces. Then the white, pitiless nignt crept In with stars that were as bits of broken glass. There were now only five men in the ice-boui-1 Lucas the captain, Hanway, the second engineer, the second pilot and a deck hand. The temperature fell again after the storm; it reached twenty below zero, and the snow became crusted. In the long nights - the dread-ridden crew heard the coyotes bewailing their empty bellies and the" ache of their frosted feet. All night the ca bles, drawn taut with the intense cold, sang dismally into the frozen hollow that was the world, and the con tracting timbers popped and groan ed. One night in late December the captain dreamed a pleasant dream. It seemed to him that the winter had broken up; the spring rains fell; the good smell of the earth, mixed with the odor of wet grass, filed his nos trils. He felt the lift of a flood be neath him. He heard the snoring of the engines; felt the eager tremb ling of the boat as she nosed the flood and took the swirl of the cur rent southward. Then suddenly it seemed that the Jennie Lucas shook herself like a wet dog, and he awoke with the sound of splintering wood in his ears. The boat was vibrating! The machinery was moving! He leaped out of his bunk and ran on deck, for he had not undressed. There was a light down the aft stairs. He rushed down into the engine room and found the boilers sizzling with heat, and the machinery working un der forty pounds pressure, which was steadily mounting, for the safely valve had been tied down. He cut the cords that held the" valve and shut down the engine. Then he looked about for Hanway, but he was not in the room. 'Where is that idiot?" muttered the the captain; "he's busted the paddle wheels! 111 " He had reached the top of the stairs when a strange will moaning cry, like and unlike that of a coyote, pierced the silent night like a pang. The sound seemed to come from the after deck. There the captain ran and behldJlm Hanway on his hands and knees in the snow, with his hag gard face lifted to the sky, sending forth doleful answers to the "Jieart broken plaint of the coyotes. " "What the deuce, Hanway ' " be gan the captain. Conservation seemed impossible. A question called forth only a laconic reply. v Late in the afternoon the sec ond pilot leaped to his feet and with clinched fists paced up and down the engine room.' "Why don't you talk?" he growled. "Why don't you talk? Hang you, why don't you sing or yell or talk ?" His two companions turned blank faces upon him for answer. "You're all Infernal lunatics that's what you are!" whined 'the second pilot, pacing the floor. "The devil's got it in for the Lucas! I tell you, you're a parcel of " Just then the great outer silence was broken by a wild, song sung in raucous tones. The three leaped to their feet. Who had . dared to shout so loud into that terrible stillness ? It seemed .like a challenge to some invincible sleeping enemy. They rushed out on deck and high above them on the curved roof of the pilot house they beheld the cap tain, looming huge against the sky. He was without coat and hat, and his hair fell in tagles about his bloat ed face. . He was evidently very drunk. ., . Upon the slippery edge of the roof eh stood, balanced upon his toes like a ballet dancer, leering down upon the' suddenly appearing audience. Then, bowing low, , he raised a thick voice: "Entertalnln the (hie) coy otes! (hie). Good of me, dontcha think?" Then re suddenly began his song -again and swung oft! into the dizzy mades of a'rowdy dance. He clogged. he shuffled, he pirouetted, .he chass ed. Keeping time with one giddy foot, he kicked high for the edification of an imaginary bald-headed row. Louder and wilder grew the song; Louder and wilder grew the song; faster and faster he danced. Then, swinging too near the slippery edge of the roof, he went off in a whirling spray of snow, struck the hurricane deck, and bounded off, landing at the feet of the three spectators. He lay very still. A sluggish stream of blood oozed from his head and reddened the snow about him. The three gazed horror-stricken. This was the something that had been waiting about them in the silence. For many minutes they stared up on the quiet face that seemed to them. the visible centre from which eman ate dthe awful hush. At length they carried the body into the engine room; but the captain was dead. In the evening they chopped a hole . n the ice and thrust the body into it. There was no ceremony; they wanted this quiet thing out of sight. The next morning only two men appeared on the boat Hanway and the deck hand. A fresh traJl would southward down the valley.' The sec ond engineer and the second pilot, taking the last gun and the greater share of the grub, had fled in the night from the evil-starred Lucas. Of the two who remained, one had lost his reason and the ot'ier kept continually drunk; for having despair tie' of following his deserting: com panions, since there were no more guns, he conso'.e.l himself with a keg of liquor which he had discov ered in the captain's room. The wolves, grown bold with hun ger, came close to the boat at . and filled the darkness with w&'S And through the day the u0 stared vacantly down the white" ley into the south. They 8(JM" spoke to each other, for an --, ou insane suspicion mem apart. In the latter part of February sudden change came over Han ' He seemed as one who had be? aroused from a long sleep. in vague way he again realize! the ,it uation. and a longing to live a a n 1 . 84 me oF"g giew upon him it was an obsession. ""i uuici iic Knew inp u until r,r th. rnnnfno' ahnrt t Vi o t u - ... ci e .was only bacon left and not enough to two men until the spring thaw. g,Jt there was enough for one. He would -be that one: The will to live grew bic jn hll weakened brain and filled It full, ta til there was no place for pity, jj, got up In the night, seized the bacoa and the liquor and hid them in the engine room. All the next day h sat in the engine room with a stick of wood in his hand, guarding the priceless stuff which alone Cou!J enable him to see the Bpring. And the deck hand threatened ani cursed and begged plteously by turnj but Hanway guarded his treasure. He would see the spring again. But in the middle of the third night the deck hand, grown dspe-. ate, was creeping stealthily down the aft stairs when Hanway awoke from a momentary doze. They met on the stairs. ' "Great God, Hanway," begged the deck hand, "give me Just a rine to chaw at, and I'll go away pieaw, Jim!" Hanway laughed hideously in the man's face. An dthey fought: it the battle of hungry brutes, and Hanway was the larger. All the while the wolves about the boat kept up- the ancient hunger cry. At length, Hanway tottered to hii feet and fled into the engine room. He bolted the door with palsied (Inf ers. But the other lay quietly on the stairs. Then there came a confusion of f-ounds - sas of a thousand devil swooping in upon the boat. The Avolves were fighting over the thine on the stairway. But Hanway, shrieking with fright, piled log after log against the door. He would keep the devils out. He wmilH sen tV nrln?' In the biddle of March a steamboat from Sioux City, forging its way up the stream that still ran ice. met i pitiful ghost of a boat. Both h paddle wheels were shattered, and She was scarred .from stem to stern with the Ice. Idly swinging about with the swirl on the heavy spring current, she came down like a float ing corpse. When the crew boarded her. they found the stripped skeleton of a man on deck. They went through the cabin and discovered no one. But after much battering at the donr at the foot of the aft stairs, they enter ed the engine room. I in a corner of the room a gray- haired, gray-whiskered thin, not to tally unlike a man, crouched an whimpered with fear. Madness Akin to Happiness. BY PROF. CESARE LOMBROSO. some information. "It's down to, 10 degrees, sir; and the Ice is running a bit!" "You're a liar!" snarled Hanway, lunging at the man with a savage through all her timbers; so much so blow that sent him sprawling under that the captain rushed down the aft his load. stairs and through the engine room door which had besn left unbolted by the fireman. "For God's sake, Jim:" he gasped. "You'll blow us sky ".ngh She'3 (shiv ering like a man with the ague and running like a scared jack rabbit! How much are you carrying?" Hanway turned a haggard face up on the captain. "I'm a licensed engi neer, ain't I?" he said. "This is the biggest race of my life, and I'll win if don't blow us all to powder! Do you hear that? Jim Hanway is run ning a 1,000-mile heat with the winter. "But Jim," pursued the captain, en deavoring to reason with the engi neer, for river engineers in the old days were very often autocrats below decks; "how much steam " Hanway .who was again staring at the indicator, threw his hat over the gauge and grasping a stick of wood, turned upon the captain. His face had a nasty, malevolent look. "Go to hell, will you?" he snarled. His eyes had narrowed into two steely points of light in the dark sunken sockets that told of tense nerves and sleepless nights. The captain withdrew and Han way held the steam at fifty-six. Morning crept in through the dirty little windows, and stilly Hanway stood with his hand on the- lever and his haggard eyes fixed upon the gauge. When th-second engineer! "Would she stand fifty-seven pounds?" muttered Hanway to him- self; "the last reading was twenty two. We've lost twelve twelve what? Twelve years ho, twelve miles no, degrees " By a curious mental process at which he himself wondered vaguely it seemed to him that zero was death. Why zero? He didn't know but somehow, zero was death. manacles upon the conquered. In the morning the river was jammed with ice from bank to bank. For a week the crew scarcely stir- Hanway raised himself to his knees, (and turning his drawn; face upon the captain, pointed off down the white river and said with a weak, expres- red from the engine room, where they sionless voice: "I told you she'd have Turning to the firemen, he ordered one on deck to see how the mercury J expressionless stare of a sick sheep. sat about sullenly. They were beat en, and they did not care to see the completeness of their defeat. if our hundred miles lay between them and Fort Union; and below them, three hundred miles away, was Fort Sully. . With the beginning of the second week the temperature raised; a fine, ary snow began to fall, and with it fell the awful winter hush. Hanway went about as a man stunned. He ate mechanically and seldom spoke. His eyes had the dull, then stood. The man returned sneak Ingly. "How is it?" asked Hanway. The bearer of ill tidings withdrew to a safe distance before he ventured to answer as one who confesses his guilt. It's no better, sir l's worse, sir it's dropped to nine, sir." Hanway seemed not to hear. His eyes were riveted upon the gauge. The indicator had just touched fifty seven. At midnight the pilot bawled fran tically down the tube for less speed. Hanway stured a handful for less speed. Hanwayxstuffed a handful of waste Into the tube. A minute later there came a grinding, slushing sound. Then the Lucas shook her self, shrieking and groaning through all her timbers, reared like a fright ened horse and stopped stock-still. Hanway was thrown - to the . floor. In a dazed mechanical way, he scram-. bled to his feet again, shut down the The matter of food now became a problem, as the supply aboard was not sufficient to ' feed ten men more than six weeks; whereas five months lay between them and the spring break-up. Accordingly, the captain proposed a big hunt, and five volun teered four deck hands and the head pilot. So when the snow ceased falling these five went forth. The five re maining men watched ' their compan ions dwindling into the great white silence till they disappeared over a ridge, and there was a' muttering on the boat, for a strange dread had grown up out of the hush. . I nthe afternoon a gusty wind grew up from the northwest, 'sending long. snake-like streamers of snow writh ing and hissing down the valley. Hour by hour the- wind increased, and the remaining five peered anxiously Into the steadily contracting circle of the storm, but no .hunters appeared. And supper ready, didn't I, cap? Seems like I did let's see. She's sitting up by the fire waiting and I'm not com ing home because, cap, I can't get the throttle open somehow. Throt tle's bustedi somehow- and she's waiting been waiting and supper's getting getting hub?" Hanway passed a shaking hand across" his brow and fell to sniveling like a frightened boy. The captain put Hanway to bed and explained matters to the others who had turned out: "It's nothing but Jim just a bit off his head thought he was driving her south." , But the captain paced the deck till dawn, muttering to himself. He was haunted with a premonition that he would never see spring. He too felt a "something big arm black ana ter rible moving down upon him,", as Hanway had put it. The awful still ness seemed pregnant with disaster. . The dawn crept like a shivering thing across the white expanses, and the sun lifted a pale face above the ghostly bluffs. Hanway slept heavily in -his bunk, and the captain did not appearv The three others fried the bacon for their breakfast and ate in lisence. Then they sat about in the engine room and waited. Waited for what? They did not know; but the monotonous winter hush seemed ever about to bring forth some unuttera ble horror. The perishing of their five companions in ' the blizzard and the madness of Hanway were having their effect, . t . Any . one who visits a lunatic asy lum for a few hours where he hears desperate shrieking imagines he has come to a place of suffering. But after remaining there for some little time he agrees that only there can be met a typeof happiness so prolonged and so complete as to offer the key to the condition of joy that is so extremely fleeting in normal beings. The idiot first boasts of his physical qualities and capabilities, his excellent singing, his enormous . weight, his chest of steel, his speed that enables him to run' a thousand miles a minute, his bodily secretions of fine wines and and precious metals. To-day he is general of Europe, king of Rome and the stars; to-morrow he 'will be pope, anti-pope, coin specialist, and prime months in the year manifest extraor dinary activity and cheerfulness, but all of a sudden they collapse. , Some men of genius were analo gously smitten: Poe, Comte, Shopen hauer. ., Tasso and Car'dano wished it infer red that they were inspired by God. Mohammed avowed openly that he actually was. Any criticism of their opinions they looked upiS?i as extreme persecution. Newton was said to have been murderously infuriated' against his scientific contradictors. The poet Lucius would not rise when Julius Caesar entered the assembly of poets because he considered himself the better versifier. The Princess de Con tl Informing .Malherbe that she would show him the most beautiful verses in the world said: "Excuse me, I have already seen them, because if, as you say, they are better than any others, I must have written them myself." Victor Hugo was governed by the 6b session of being-not only the greatest of all poets but 'the greatest of all men of all countries of all ages. One might suppose that all of these, in their imagined greatness, would be the happiest of men. However, this is by no means the case, for the worm of the persecution idea gnaws at the most roseate visions of , geniuses, as if they were actual maniacs. It Is al most proverbial, this tendency to mel ancholy among most thinkers. Just because their sight reaches farther than the'; ordinary, and because occur pied with too sublime' flights, they have not commonplace habits of, mind, and because, like Idiots and un like people of mere talent, they frequently unbalanced. Therefore ge niuses are despised and miHunder?to' by the majority, who do not Perc! their points of contact with the rw of mankind, but who do see their centrlcltles of conduct and the that their views disagree with tnw generally accepted. "There never nw been a liberal Idea." writes the mous novelist Faubert. wn,l",h;n. not been unpopular; not a true tn.ni that has not scandalized the mui tude." . Cardano. the Italian physicist ana mathmaticlan, declared himself w seventh genius of creation adding: i" only one was born every ten cm ries. He affirmed that he learn Greek and Latin in three days. solved 40.000 problems, and ma 200,000 discoveries. He cla"JieaThj, i.,o. oain after death. iia iiocii aKuiu thlL . . - j v... tu nntion tnk mail ivan nuuiuru m- f he had innumerable enemit-s who . . i ana i" all conspiring against nis mc - . accused the faculty of the u"1 at Padua of attempting to P'5" "!nf Cardano was in the habil : o f ' a suit ana neaaaress oi -Aia In the daytime he would wear lea soles weighing eight pounds an night would rove around armea i leein, nis iace ment 1 cloths. 1 lieniuses inaeeu enj"j "" ... ma- supernal felicity. These are " 0 ments of creative frenzy wh'c" many respects resemble the p excesses of epileptics onu, t(j an ordinary brain is being as b4 by convulsions but a peat n "' Instead of some atrocious besia' - flf dark crime there results a " roti lofty character. Beaconfieiii , that felt am If there were step from Intense mental ,concJ tie aiu he felt i" tion to madness. havillv AamnriYie. whflt he moments when his nsi?0nA th abnormally acute and intens . everything about him 9een?e. r,vinf alive, i that he seemed to re rel). and was scarcely certain thai ly existed. ....loni ; Analogous are the J'frt'- -..if. cf on..! v.i.iiti and And the illustrious Beethoen "Musical inspiration Is to " mysterious state in whi'h lpt9 world appears to shape ,t?;' ,n! vast harmony where every iee r every thought I have seen" ' foltJ V f - .hr all tn ' -a of nature seem to become m u Kir for me. where my whole to" jlf ed with violent shivering n stands up on end."
The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.)
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Feb. 6, 1909, edition 1
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