To that all-potent and all-merciful drug I am indebted
for a respite of many years from my sentence of death. But even the
virtues of opium have their limit. The progress of the disease has
gradually forced me from the use of opium to the abuse of it. I am
feeling the penalty at last. My nervous system is shattered; my nights
are nights of horror. The end is not far off now. Let it come--I have
not lived and worked in vain. The little sum is nearly made up; and I
have the means of completing it, if my last reserves of life fail me
sooner than I expect. I hardly know how I have wandered into telling you
this. I don't think I am mean enough to appeal to your pity. Perhaps, I
fancy you may be all the readier to believe me, if you know that what I
have said to you, I have said with the certain knowledge in me that I am
a dying man. There is no disguising, Mr. Blake, that you interest me.
I have attempted to make my poor friend's loss of memory the means of
bettering my acquaintance with you. I have speculated on the chance of
your feeling a passing curiosity about what he wanted to say, and of my
being able to satisfy it. Is there no excuse for my intruding myself on
you? Perhaps there is some excuse.
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