The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1875-03-11

Beats as of flesh and blood.
The Tempest, act 5, Scene /.
It was through an atmosphere hazy
and laden to the saturatiOn point with
nicotine that looked at length with
a sort of compassion at Tom, who sat
with his feet on the other side of the
little open-gTate stove which, by a
bold fiction OF the imagination, was
supposed to warm my office. His
silence ought, perhaps, TO have been
construed as q tacit reverence for the
arguments which had been advRnc-
ing with considerable fiuency during
the last fifteen minutes. They were
certainly incOntrovertible, sustained
as they were by the only 700 material
and acknowledged facts about US. Ger
tainly, had he been disposed to assail
my proposition, that the work of es-
tRblishing a practice by a young
physician without connections was
one of poverty and misery and long
suffering, the auetion-rOOm furniture
would have cracked denial, my un-
used instruments would have snapped
their joints with indignation in the
drawer at the other side of the little
room, and the gray ashes that so near
ly crowded out the Goals from the
CRATE would have glowed again in re-
monstrance. This last event could
not have been wholly disagreeable,
since We had been smoking for
warmth rather than for enjoyment,
and my pipe had gone out in the ar
dor of discourse.
But controversy was not what my
heart sought; rather sympathy, And
Tom, to whom my plant had lost its
soul-moving quality by frequent re-
petition, replying at first with words
that became inarticulate In the strug-
gle to pass bis pipe-stem, had then
punctuated my remarks with mean
ingless gutturals, and finally subsided
into the quiet of abstraction. 1t was
not speechless conviction then, but
quite another state of mind that ]
saw portrayed on my friends counte-
nance and there fell upon me that
sense of loss which comes with the
conviction that well-eXpressed and
forcible grumble has bsen thrown
away on deaf ears.
Whether it was the unnamed in-
fuence which popular superstition as
signs to the gaze of the human eye,
or whether it was the abrupt cesss-
ton of the sound OF my voice, some
thing caused Tom to raise his glance,
and, as il were, to gather himself to-
gether again from the scattered con-
dition into which be had lapsed.
From vacancy, his eyes enlarged the
visual angle until probably my ngurc
came in sight, and he spoke
"Too bad. Didn't you collect any.
thing ?"
''Collect your sehses, TOm," said /,
with some Indignation at this irrele-
want speech,
''So / will, so l will" was Toms
unoffended reply, as he drew that
long breath which accompanies a
change of mental occapRtion-or, to
speak with more scientific exactness,
which it caused by the involuntary
respiratory muscles relieving them
selves from restraint. "I was think
ing of something else.n
Now, this mood of abstraction had
been growing on Tom of late. His
occasional visits of friendship and
coincidence at my Office had been Civ
en- up more completely to that fumi-
cation which is so admirable an ac-
Compartment to, but not wholly q
substitute for sympathetic compan-
ionship and the evidence that he
had something on his mind whose
contemplation was more absorbing
than even the picture of my words had
at length become Irresistible. / have
no hesitation in saying that 1 was
more selfish than my friend. Miser-
able egotist that I was, my own af-
fairs filed my mind so entirely that,
although perceiving that he had a
trouble, / shut my eyes to the fact,
and inflicted myself upon him more
persistently than ever.
1t may be that Tom thought him
self lacking in generosity while per-
mitting me to unbOsom myself and
offering Dothing of his own in return;
or, perhaps, the time and the occasion
were peculiarly appropriate. What.
ever the case may have been, he was
silent only for one moment, long
enough 10 blow large ring of smoke,
thick as s ships cable, and then to
send another, slim as the bracelet O;
the daintiest wrist, Whirling through
the exact center of the first, when,
Just as they broke on the side of the
stove, he continued f:
ssRoger. what are the signs of in.
cipient insanity ?'
The iaconsequence of this remark
made its substance rather startling.
"fWhat in the world do you ask
about that for, old fellow ?" said L
There's Msudsley's treatise will tel
you all about it, if you really wAni
to know but. you see when every
body is more or less insane, it break:
ont in all sorts of ways. You have tC
watch for it,"
''NO; but seriously, now did yOU
ever see anything in me that made
you think-that made you suspect
Nonsense, Tom what has got in.
to your head ?D
'fhats exactly what / want to tall
to you about. i want you to feel my
pdlse"-here is stretched out an arm
that would have been formidable, in,
deed, had q madman's mind eOntroiI
ed its action. HD0es itrun along fu
riously =? Look at my eyes, are the
pupils dilated and glaring =? Is ther,