It is a truth universally acknowledged that the world is most cruel to those it elevates too swiftly. We have received tidings, delivered with the cold precision of the New York Times, regarding the passing of Miss Daveigh Chase—that haunting child who once startled the sensibilities of the public in the motion picture The Ring.

Alas, the curtain has fallen for Miss Chase at the tender age of thirty-five. The reports from the Los Angeles medical examiners reveal a tragedy far more visceral than any ghost story: the poor soul succumbed to the ravages of AIDS. It appears the world only learned of her departure on the 16th of June some weeks after the event, as if the public had simply forgotten to notice her absence.

One cannot help but sigh at the wretchedness of her final years. Her father, Mr. John David Schweller, has confessed that his daughter spent her twilight hours in the most wretched penury, devoid of a roof over her head. It is a most distressing affair; the seeds of her ruin were sown at a mere thirteen years of age, shortly after her debut, when she fell prey to the seductive poison of narcotics. A father’s heart must be heavy indeed, for he admits that his last correspondence with the girl occurred when she was but nineteen.

Indeed, the tragedy is sharpened by the memory of her talents. The world remembers her not only as the spectral child but as the voice of the innocent Lilo and a presence in Donnie Darko. Yet, the fickle nature of fame is such that by 2015, the invitations to the Great Salons of cinema had ceased. Her final public appearance of note was not upon a stage, but in the grasp of the law in 2018, arrested for the possession of those very substances that led her to the gutter.

How typical of our age, where a young lady may possess the world in a single afternoon, only to find herself a stranger to her own kin and a ward of the streets by evening. A most melancholy end for a child who once commanded the gaze of millions.