Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1892-11-01
A s.scIoe's LAST MOMENTS.
Nerved by Absinthe to tho Point of In.
jecting the Fatal Drug.

jecting the Fatal Drug.
As to the question of the suicidal
tendencies of absinthe drinking, there
is striking instance in one of Edgar
Saltus' novels Mr.. Incoul's Misad-
venture" AT least the musings and
soliloquy during which suicide was
determined upon was accompanied
by free indulgence in the danger
ous beverage. Lennox Leigh is the
young man who takes his own life
as the only seemly end to a charge
of cheating at cards, of which he is
innocent, but which he cannot re-
flute. The charge is made by his vim
dictive enemy, Mr.. Incoul. The WV
id portrayal of the condition of misd
produced by the absinthe is remark
able. "On reaching his room, says
the author, he put mis- purchases
morphine intended for suicidej on a
table. poured out a glass of absinthe,
lighted a cigarette and threw him
self down on a lounge. For awhile
his thoughts roamed among the epi-
sodes of the day, but gradually they
drifted into less personal currents.
He began to think of the early
legions of Charon, the god, renounc-
ing his Immortality; of the Hyper
borean, the tabled people, famous
for their fidelity. who voluntarily
threw themselves into the sea; of
Juno bringing death to Biton and
Cleobis as the highest recompense of
their piety: OF Agamedes and Tro-
phonius praying Apollo for what
ever gift he deemed most advanta-
geous, and in answer to the prayer
receiving eternal sleep He remem-
bered how Plato had preached to the
happiest people in the world the
blessedness of ceaseless sleep; how
the Buddha, teaching that life was
but a right to suffer, had found for
the recalcitrant no greater menace
than that of an existence renewed
through kalpas of time.
He mixed himself another glass of
absinthe, holding the caraffe high in
the air, watching the thin stream of
water coalesce with the green drug
and turn with it into an opalescent
milk. The soliloquy was renewed.
After what has happened there is
nothing left | might change my
name. might go to Brazil or Aus
tralia, but witt. what object2
could not get away from myself
And yet life is pleasant; i'll spent as
mine has been, many times have
found it grateful. After all, it is not
life that is short; it is youth. When
that goes, as mine seems to have
gone, outside of solitude there is lit
tie charm in anything, and what is
death but isolation the most perfect
and impenetrable that nature has
devised9 And whether that isola-
ton came to me tonight or decades
hence. what matters it2'
He poured out more absinthe and
put the bottle down empty Before
drinking he undid the package which
he had bought from the chemist
First he took from it box about
three inches long. 1t was tiny syr
inge and with it two little instru
ments. One of these he adjusted in
the projecting tube and with his fin
ger felt carefully the point. He
threw off his coat and rolled up his
sleeve. From the phial he filled the
syringe and with the point pr'icked
the bare arm and sent the liquid
squirting into the flesh. Three times
he did this. He reached for the alb
sinthe and left it untasted. The
lights turned pale and glowed less
vividly, as though wells were being
drawn between him and them. But
still the languor continued, sweeter
even, and more enveloping, till from
sweetness it was almost pain. The
room grew darker, the colors waned,
the lights behind the falling wells
sank thin, fading one by one; a
single spark fingered; it wavered a
moment and vanished into night"
Leigh had ended his life by his
own act in a condition to which |
large quantities Of absinthe contrib
uted. st. Louis Globe-Democrat