Setting the River on Fire.
"He'll never set the river on fire" is a popular saying, implying that the person to whom reference is made will never make much of a success in the world.
I do not know the origin of the saying, but an incident that occurred in Gloversville, N. Y., shows that there is a kind of setting the river on fire that is not to be imitated by ne'er-do-wells or anyone else.
A certain Gloversville man was walking over a bridge that crossed Cayadutta Creek in the north end of Gloversville. He lighted his pipe and threw the match into the water. That ordinarily safe place proved to be anything but safe, for the water was covered with a film of naphtha. For a long way the creek became a river of fire. Five buildings were set on fire and four of them were burned to the ground. Large piles of lumber were also destroyed. The electric light and power wires were burned, and the city was left in darkness while traffic was interrupted. All that from a heedlessly thrown match that literally set the river on fire.
That is the only way some people know how to set rivers on fire, and they think they are doing a great thing when they do it. They go about watching for opportunities to make a big sensation. Their matches are always ready for a possible blaze. If characters burn up in the resulting conflagration, if happiness is destroyed, if lives are ruined, what care they? Have they not set the river on fire?
Ah, there are many kinds of successes, some honorable and some dastardly, but of all successes that is the most contemptible which feeds personal vanity at the expense of the misery and loss of others.