A SCHOLAR'S TRAGEDY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2779, 19 June 1907, Page 80

A SCHOLAR'S TRAGEDY.

A ray of poetry — grotesque, touching, and tragic — slioot.s across London in the 6tory of Mr Lucas, ■who took his own life (in a jury's opinion while temporarily insane) the other week in Kings way. Consider the facts. Emerging from the "Tube" station at the corner of Holborn, an Tinknown man with a T-ed beard falls upon the javeoient, A constable

suspects poison. The man is taken to a near hospital, where he dies. At the office of a well-known "class'" journal, on whicli he is employed as a writer, liis absence causes much surprise. When the news of his death arrives his comrades are dumbfounded. They had not dreamed that ho , was- in trouble or danger. And they knew no red beard." — "La Milo." — The explanation- is now public property. It is understood that Mr Lucas's death was connected with a Temarkable — indeed, a purely intellectual — infatuation which, h« had gradually conceived for the artistic personality of the lady who recently introduced to London h«r wonderful representations of Greek statutary. Thousands and tens of thousands of Londoners have seen "La Milo." They have seen her with different degrees of appreciation ; to many of us some of her poses seemed memorably beautiful. But in this man's life the music hall "turn" came like a great inspiration. He was a student and a dreamer, who, amid the racket of London, was possessed by the "grandeur that was Greece, and the glory that was Rome." These reproductions of beautiful Greek forms, instinct with the youth of tho world, were to him L .,» resurrection , a. passion. Night after night, -in the miscellaneous Pavilion crowd, Mr Lucas waited for "La Milo," and for her alone. In hi 6 delights he wrote to the lady -who was reversing the part of Galatea, and discussed little points of pose >and lighting incidental' to her art. "La Milo' r and her manager saw his competence to advise. There was a reciprocation of interest, and an acquaintance. — Poetry and Prose.^But this freshet of emotion had' to contend with prior and dreary facts, with his occupation as a journalist, his struggles for advancement, his money troubles, and — strange and ironical contrast — certain difficulties about a patent ! Just howall these things worked on- his mind we shall never know, and do not need to know. It seems certain, that Richard Norman Lucas had seen his inner life embodied before him, his dream materialised, hie secret fascination clothed- in flesh in the London hurly-burly — and the vision was too much for him. H© lived for "La Milo." Ho followed the lady from one 6tage to another. And to do this «ffectually this cultivated man and Oxford Bachelor of Arts disguised himself. Of this amazing and moving little s-tory two "exhibits" are left — a red beard and a set of verses. The ve*se6 were Mr Lucas's tribute to "La Milo," and he had tile satisfaction of seeing them printed on the Pavilion programme. Here they are: The lights die down, grow dimmer and decrease, Till semi-darkness wraps the close-packed hall, Story and jest and talk and laughter cease; For rumour has been busy with us ell Telling of beauty worthy ancient Greece That in a moment will put forth its thrall — A loveliness that speaks straight to th& heart, And shows us Nature fairer still than art. A statue, yet alive! Youth's vivid gloryPulses through that white form — through rounded arm And matchless sid« «nd thigh. So in the story The marble shape Pygmalion's prayer made •warm, AH glowing stood beneath his gaze, before he Clasped her to his hot heart 'mid whirling storm Of sighs and kisse3; through that enamelled whiteness Shines all undimmed the living beauty'a brightness l You "were not boirn for death!" Long, long ago That ?e'f-same form gleamed white on the gold sand By bright Eleus's, when in beauty's g^w Phryne half-blushing, loosened zone and band. And to her feet beheld her raiment flow, While Athens watched enthralled »".ong the strand! And Helen was the name that eTst you bore, - To Troy's undoing, many a year before! But not in those past years when the grey; wall Throbbed to that light tread, and Troy's ancient men Deemed the long years of changing -warfare all Well paid by presence of tna.l loveliness — not then To beauty's lot did such a triumph fall As now — to light a wider flame again From where the Southern Cross g'fams en your home To where Niagara thunders into foam 1 R. N. Lucas. To this etory I can add — I wish to add— nothing.— P. T. 0.

— A physician states that it is possible to recognise, by the superior quality of their hair, women whose parents have risen from poverty to wealth. As a rule, the children of the poorer classes have more luxuriant hair than the offspring of tho rich. W