The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-04-18
THE ELIXIR OF DEATH.


 lowed her across the mystic threshold of darkness and of death. It is just one year to-day since she died, alone, on the desolate ocean, iu foreign ship, with 10 friend near her, with only strange hands to do the last offices of this life, and with tongues yet stranger to answer her last words. She died at in the evening, and at in the evening shall die, as lonely here in the great city as she on the dreary ocean. At 6 tonight, in two or three short hours more, when the chill wind falls down on the damp streets, amid the hurrying roar which declares that the day is done, l shall leave this life, as unworthy to die as 1 am to live.
 do not die to punish my sin. Iknow Ill well that for me it would be a punish aent more deadly to live, with my body Jorn and racked, with my brain on fire, yith my heart dull and heavy, with my conscience sharper than serpents tooth, with the awful knowledge have now of the emptiness of life. There is nothing for me to live for. have no hopes, no desires even. For me the future is as black as the past. Annihilation-to be plotted out absolutely from the whole universe, to cease to be suddenly, body, and mind, and soul-this is the one thing l could wish, and this is one thing l know cannot attain. At most can die ; in life control myself; after death, what happens will happen, without effort on my part, and despite my utmost effort should be foolish enough to resist.
 Before die, then, with the little strength now left to me, and in spite of the gnawing pain which will kill me at last, write this record of my search for the Elixir of Death. Curiosity may lead some man to read it-the same curiosity which led me to my great crime, and through the crime to the great discovery. shall not begin at my birth or at my bringing-up; it is of my death and not of my birth curiosity will care to read. 1 am not yet two score years of age; l shall die before have attained half of the al- lotted years of man; and my life has been lived along one line-I have been an unceasing, unhasting, unresting in- quirer. l have had always the same fatal and unquenchable curiosity which ;s .he index Q! the highest and mos. mas. culine genius, as it is also the mark of the most feminine pettiness.
 was youth of studious habits, with persistent desire for investigation, es, pecially in queer and odd paths little trodden by the average man-that per soni6cation of the humdrum and the commonplace, from which ever revolted. had this taste even as boy-if indeed ever was a boy. Sometimes when l have watched other children have won- dered whether was ever a child myself '; it seemed to me as though had always been what was. A time came when hoped to have had my childhood in the society of my own children but now And yet perhaps it is best as it is; there are those who wish for children that they may be trained up to continue a great work, and to carry it on to ultimate vic tory. But have made my great discov- cry, and have nothing to leave a son but confession of the emptiness of life and the futility of desire. 1 do not know the meaning of family ties my father died before was born, and my mother died in giving me birth. have always lived alone and lonely except during the few short months of my marriage.
 When left college spoke French and German, and Italian; knew Greek and Latin better than most students of my age /; and had smattering of He brew and Sanskrit. To science l had then given little attention, and l did not know enough to be aware of my own ig. norance. My graduating thesis was on "The Deadlock of Science ; found it two or three years ago, and was surprised at the sharpness of my reas asoning, and at the depth of my incompetence to attempt subject of which knew nothing. Ide- voted myself at once to the study of law with youthful ardor, which has now burnt out and consumed itself utterly, leaving not so much as the smouldering 2 ashes behind. l studied the old law books; learned Norman French; l de. ciphered crumbling and mouldy treatises on Roman law, written ir quaint medie- val Latin, full of queer elis,ons and con- fractions. It was not long before I dis covered that medical jurisprudence inter- ested me more than any other branch of law. From Wharton and Stille turned to the Gasehe des 7yf6nnanr, and to the Ne1Cgafs Calendar, until had a strange callo.sness to the details of physical sui fering which had for me morbid fasci- nation. read all the famous trials; became an expert on inianticide, on as- sault, on murder I studied the details of death by strangulation, by the sword or dagger, and by poison. Hound special charm in the investigation of dormant charges of poisoning, freely banded about in Italy and France when the dark ne-s in the middle ages was clearing away and. the principles of toxicoloYy he- gan to be better understood. gave a rshearirg to many an accused, and ac- quited many victim who had fallen be- meath the axe, while sent to the scaf- fold many a king and emperor, many a prince and pope who had died comfort ably in his bed three hundred years before was born. became learned in poisons, knew the differences between vegetable and mineral poisons, I knew the antidotes and remedies, | guessed the poison which has no antidote. In the course of this study soon felt the in- sufficiency of my preparation for scien- tiffc research, and for the investigation of sh~ s>lA .laI- Al