Some of the experiences of that time were curious. Phlebitis had set in, and for a time I was in serious danger from the formation of a clot of blood in one of the arteries. As is pretty generally known, whilst this state of things exists death may occur at any moment from the stoppage of the heart through the clot getting free and passing into the central organ. It was curious to lie in this condition for several days, never knowing at night whether I should see the sun rise again. But I was very much struck by the fact that I became easily reconciled to my state, and did not feel the slightest apprehension with regard to the course of the disease. I was almost free from pain, and was able to carry on my work as regularly as if I had been in attendance at the _Mercury_ office. Every evening I dictated my leading article to a shorthand writer. A telephone--at that time a great novelty--was put up by the side of my bed and connected with my room at the _Mercury_ office, and by this means I was kept in constant communication with the members of my staff. Thus my time passed pleasantly enough. When I was not dictating I was reading, and during my confinement I re-read the whole of the Waverley novels. It was when I was once more enjoying the romantic adventures of "Ivanhoe" that I was seized, one afternoon, with the premonitory symptoms which my doctors had told me would indicate the approach of death. At my urgent request they had enlightened me upon this point, and I had learned that death from the accidental stoppage of the heart would be without pain, and would simply be preceded by a feeling of faintness. It was a feeling of this kind which suddenly stole over me as I was reading "Ivanhoe." I felt it deepening, and laid aside my book under the firm conviction that I would never again read printed page. Asking for some stimulant, I was given some brandy and water, but it seemed to have no effect in checking the ever-increasing faintness. So I closed my eyes in the drowsy belief that I should never open them again in this world. I felt no pain, no agitation, no fear. Half an hour later I awoke from a placid sleep, and, to my great surprise, found that I was decidedly better than I had been for some time. This seemed, indeed, to have been the crisis of my illness, and from that point I slowly recovered. My doctors conjectured that a minute clot of blood had really passed through my heart, producing the faintness from which I had suffered, but not causing death.