"Stephen died at three in the morning, the same
sinister hour which carried away our friend Frederic
nineteen months before. At midnight, in Crane's
fourteenth-century house in Sussex, we two tried
to lure back the ghost of Frederic into that house of
ghosts, and to our company, thinking that if reappearing
were ever possible so strenuous a man as
Harold would somehow shoulder his way past the
guards, but he made no sign. I wonder if the less
insistent Stephen will suggest some ingenious method
by which the two can pass the barrier. I can imagine
Harold cursing on the other side, and welcoming
the more subtle assistance of his finely fibred
friend.
"I feel like the last of the Three Musketeers, the
other two gone down in their duel with Death. I
am wondering if, within the next two years, I also
shall get the challenge. If so, I shall go to the competing
ground the more cheerfully that two such
good fellows await the outcome on the other side.
"Ever your friend,
"ROBERT BARR."
The last of the Three Musketeers is gone, now, although he outlived his
friends by some years. Robert Barr died in 1912. Perhaps they are still
debating a joint return.
There could be, perhaps, no better close for a paper on Stephen Crane
than the subjoined paragraph from a letter written by him to a Rochester
editor:--
"The one thing that deeply pleases me is the
fact that men of sense invariably believe me to be
sincere.
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