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About The courier. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1894-1903 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 25, 1899)
8 THE COU;.(. . A gO80OOMM0tlOO0ft0OOMIMM0MHM THE PASSING SHOW: W I LLA GATHER 5 At lBt tho poomB of Richard Realf, poot, soldier and workman sotuo would add tho harsher title, adventurer who spent tho six clnaneet and happiest yeare of hie disordorrd lifo in Pittsburg Iihvo been collected and edited. Twenty ono year's ago Ronlf'B tragic death in San Francisco attracted uni versal attention. Ho committed suicide there by drinking laudanum, driven to desperation by domestic troubles and pursued by tho malignancy of an almost incrediblo hatred. His death was called a tragedy; it waB, howovor, merely tho end of one, tho falling of the curtain on i tragedy which had lasted forty-four yoars. Thero are men who are simply cast for the tragic parts in lifo. Such a role was assigned tho man who was once tho Byronic genius of tho Pittsburg nresp. and he played it fiercely and well, up to the limit of his heart and brain and strength, played it to tho death. Though tho man has not yot been dead a quarter of a century, the Btory of his lifo is 60 wild, eo horrible, so fantastically groteFquo that it ronds like a romance evolved by some disordered brain. Richard Realf was born in SuBRex county, Eng'and, in 1834. He was born one of the heirs of poverty and worked at gardening to pay for his schooling. When ho wbb eighteeu he publifllied a volume of versee'GueBBes at the Beauti ful," which attracted the attention Eliza Cook, Gerald Massey, Lady Byron and her daughter, and a nephew of Thack eray's, and unfortunately secured him their patronage. Tho young man be came tho idol of Brighton, the most fashionable watering place in England, at the height of the season and for a season only. This untimely adulation affected him bb disastrously as it had done Burns years before, and completely disarmed him for tho struggle before him. For, bb George Eliot remarked, "To be an uncommon young man is to have an uncommon difficulty in getting along." Ho was made Bteward on one of the Byron estates and there became entan gled in a disastrous love affair with a Mibb Noel, a relative of Byron's, the first of thoBe baleful attachments which eventually wrecked his life. As if prophetic of the end, tho first love affair was terrible in its consequences. He contracted large debt", wandered over England indulging in freakish excesses which called hiB sanity into question, and was at laet found barefooted and in rage in the streets of Southampton, fling ing ballads for tho pennies which pass ersby threw in his hat So moat of hiB dreams of love and they exhausted arithmetic began in the clouds and ended in the streets. The "oternal J feminine" which was to thwart him at " every turn, wait for him in every path, despoil him of every honor, hold his feet forover in tho mire and at last track him to bis death, was first born into his life with madness and destitution and Bbame in its wake. And whenever and wher ever it croseed and rocrosBod his life, it left that samo black stain. Tho influ ence which has lifted other poets to the stars, for bira put out tho sun and more than once threatened to extinguish tho light of roaaon itself. In lSriS Roalf landed in Now York. In 1830 Richard Roalf and literature parted company and ho went to Kansas to take part in the anti-slavery struggle there, having been one of that conven tion which pledged itB members to death in the cauBe of liberty. He was a mem "V'bor of John Brown's band, but left for England bofore tho raid on Harper's Ferry. On his return ho entered a Jesuit college, remained thero three months, then wandered over tho coun try locturing for eoiuo months, and thon went out in ono of thoso strango disap pearances which cloudnd his lifo and perplex hiB biographers. Ho had periods of total disappearance, absolute lapses, as it werr, from tho world of tho living. During thceo disappearances nothing whatever could bo learner, of him. At this timo ho wbb seemingly blottod out for almost two years. When he again rose to tho Burfaco and caet a shadow amongst living men, ho enlisted in the Union army. HiB military career wbb brilliint. HiB namo was recorded sev eral timcB in eulogistic general orders for high personal heroism during tho two years of mighty fighting in which the army of tho Cumberland bore so largo a pat t. His bearing of the colors to the fro tit at Missionary Ridge has boen splendidly described by hiB biogra pher, Colonel R. J. Hinton; "The dark winding line climbed ever up and i'p, ono regiment moving eagerly to the front. Tho heavy fire from the enemy's rifle pits belched forth, and the blue lino, yet unformed, momentarily broke. The ling rose, and then euddonly fell to tho ground, for the bearer had been shot. It seemed minutes, but it wbb not really a second of time, whea clearly against the hazy autumn sky a slight, lithe hYure, sword in hand, was aeen to dash out from tho swaying ranks. The flag waa raised and swung aloft aa the soldier faced the command behind. Cheers were borne to the straining ears of appreciative generals and then the whole line swung swiftly forward to bayonet point under a ter rific rifle fire. At the forefront was aeeu the soldier with pointing blade and waving colors leading the way. A mo ment more and the rifle pits were reached. A second's clash and the flag wus there above the low line of rifle pits. Over the works wont the Eighty-eighth Illinois." In 1845, while Realf was still serving as a soldier, he contracted his flret legal marriage with Sophie E. Graves, whom be met in a bmall western town. Whon he wbb ordered south be left her in In diana, apparently with every intention of returning to her. His letters to her were warm and frequent. But while he was serving in the south a fancy seized him for a society woman who lived in Washington, and when he received hia discharge he hastened to that city agaitat the promptings of hia own rea son, swayed by one of those violent and apparently irresistible caprices which governed and wrecked his life, and led hia eager feet through such weary wan derings in deapair and night. Of hia latter marriage hia biographer aaya: "The marriages of Richard Realf have been much discussed. I use the plural, though legally there waa but one mar riage. The second ceremony waa biga mous in character and Realf had no knowledge whatever of hia being free from the wholesome and honorable rela tion that he fit at entered upon. The third relationship entered upon after ho had obtained from one state court a divorce from the woman he contracted marriage with at Rochester, N. Y., was, it any validity could attach, of the com mon law order. His partner in this third union was the mother of children by him, and everywhere in his latter years ho. spoke of her as ''my wife' Hia efforts, letters, and speech were bur dened by his intense desire to take care of her and the children. These were triplets, all girls, and fortunately these have been adopted and well provided for. The son has grown to a manhood worthy and upright. Catherine Casaidy and Richard Realf were married at the Church of the Trinity, Rochester, early in October, 1807. Realf himself never denied his folly in this rnattor, though ho nover acknowledged, except to hiH eisler, Bomo ton years later, tho illogality of tho act, It is not BUppoBftblo that ho believed himBolf to have thon had another and living wife. In bo mo exceedingly pa thetic letters ho afterwards wrote when ealoucy mado his socond companion a raging terror to him, that his Rochester marriago was contracted during a pro longed debauch, and to myBolf and Colonel Samuel F. Tappon, 1hh two oldest KansaB frionds, ho declared (tint ho to acted in a fit of mental uborriition.'' Tho six yoarB ho Bpont in Pittsburg bb writer and editor on tho Coiniiierci.il( wore tho least tempestuous and most use ful of hiB lifo. Thero he becamo a con vert to FranciB Murphy's temperance movomont, for a timo ovorcamo tho liquor habit and lectured as co worker with the reformer. His wife uppcurcd on the scene and ho obtainod u divorce. Ho went to England and on hiB return was completely unmanned to find that the decree of divorce had been annulled by a highor court. That moment was the one which prefigured tho end, the "fatal third act" of tho grim tragedy ho played. Scandal ongulfod him, ho lost his position and bocamo a vagrant again, took up tho old course, of dark ways and blind wanderings under a star less heaven. He drifted from placo to place, from strait to rtrait, fiom disgrace to disgrace, always pursued by an Im placable fury a hato which nover slept. His flight was only stoppod by tho Pa cific ocean. In San Francisco ho bid himself deep. He was working indue trioualy and hoping to bring hiB third wife to him when his Pittsburg pursuer came. He returnod to his lodgings ono night to find her destroying his manu scripts and effects Ho asked no ques tions then. The timo had como, tho supreme moment. It waa time for tho curtain. The finest steel has its yield ing point. He spent his last monoy for laudanum and got a room in a hotel. Ho wrote letters to his frionds explaining his act, saying: "On no account is tho person calling herself my wife to be permitted to ap proach my remains. I Bbould quiver with horror even in my doath at her touch. "I have had heavy burdenB to bear, such as have eet stronger mon than I reeling into hell. I have tried to bear them like a man, but can onduro no more." He wrote, moreover, one of tho most remarkable poems in the language, tho last linea blurred by the poison which had numbed hia hand but not chilled bis brain. He waa buried with a circlet of yellow hair on his arm, a love-token from bis first love, MUs Noel. The first madness and the last; there waa very little difference between them save of time and circumstance, In tho first folly was the essence of the last. But the verses, which were tho bloody awoat of all this anguish, tbey will live ub long aaAmericanlettora. GeniuB is the one thing indestructible. The following is a part of his last poem, the swan song which he wrote alone, penniless and dying on that last fateful night in San Francisco. A man's lips never uttered a braver death cry. A man's aoul never went out in greater agony: 'But say that he succeeded If he missed World's honors and world's plaudits, and the wage Of the world's deft lacqueys, still his lips were kissed Daily by those high angels who assuage The thirsting of the poets for he was Born unto singing and a burthen lay Mightily on him, and he moaned because ne could not rightly utter to the day What God taught in the night. Some times, nathlcss, Power fell upon him, and bright tongues of flame, And blessings reached him from poor souls in stress; And benedictions from black pits of shame, And little children's love, and old men's prayers, 1 And a Great hand that led him unawares. "So he died rich. And if his eyes were blurred With big films - silence! he Is in his grave. Greatly he suffered; greatly, too, he erred) Yet broke his heart in trying to be brave. Nor did he wait till Freedom had become The popular shibboleth of courtier's lips; He smote for her when God himself seemed dumb And all I lis arching skies were In eclipse. He was a-weary, but Tie fought his fight. And stood for simple manhood; and was joyed To see the august broadening of the light And new earths heaving heavenward from the void. He loved his fellows and their love was sweet Plant daisies at his head and at his feet." Georgo Mooro, in his critiquo on Paul Vorlaino, says that a groat poem la the most indt6tructiblo thing in the world; that if n groat poem wero cast in the anda of tho Sahara desert or dropped upon ono of tho remote islands of the bob it would bo recovered and accorded its placo among tho world' priceless pofeBCReionB. Tho theory 0 accords well with tho fact that these ecattero'i poems, written for obscure journals publit-bed in out-of tho way places, sired by a wundering vagrant, now a soldier, uow a tramp, now a reformer, now a de baucho, who spent half hia life fleeing from tho consoquonces of hia own mis takes, have boon at last ferreted out, colloutod, published and accorded the placo of distinction which ia their due. Of all tho storm and stress of thia man's lifo, of all hip innumerable follies and unspeakable anguish, of all hia dreams which woro born on the mountain topa only to die in tho gutter, of all hia ten derness and pity and courage, theae threo-Bcoro poems are what remains. In tho language of Mr. Henry James, "How much of lifo it takes to make a little art!" Every oxprestion of the humau aoul through tho medium of art is valuable either up art, or a documentary evidence upon lifo itself, aa psychological data. It iB impossible to juage the verses of Richard Realf merely aa poetry. They were born in the stormy atmosphere of overwrought emotions and to the emo tions rather than to critical discrimina tion do they appeal. Simple human anguish in outeide the province of criti cism. Of a doath scene enacted on the stage, deliberately planned, no matter how intensely played cr how complete tho abandon of the actor, one may say that it la well done or ill done. But before- death itself, criticism ia dumb. Thero are two souneta by Realf, among his best, which are wonderfully revela tory of the two sides of hia character, tho imperious frenzy of hia personal needs and desirep to which he sacrificed everything, and which drove bias from folly to folly, and tte beautiful tender neES, tho true poet aoul that lived and suffered amid all these tempests until the end, and made him beloved by all mon, and by all women, save one. PASSION. I clench my arms about your neck until The knuckles of my hand grow white with pain, And my swollen muscles quiver with the strain, And all the pulses of my life stand still. I say I clench so. Ah! you cannot tear Yourself away from my mortal grip Of forlorn tenderness and salt despair. And child like sorrowing after fellowship, And wolf-like hunger of the famishing heart; For not until my sundering fibers crack. And my torn limbs from their wrenched sockets start, O darling, darling! will I yield me back To that lone hell whence, shuddering through and through, With one wild tiger leap 1 sprang to you, SILENCE TILL. But do not heed my trembling; do not shrink Because my face is haggard and my eyes Blaze hot with thlrstiness as they would