It is remarkable what latent powers of reminiscence and narration are awakened by certain species of illness. In my case these ran chiefly along the lines of ancient history; and during the weeks of lucid or semi-lucid intervals I nearly wore out both my night and day nurses with Greek tragedies and Greek and Roman history and mythology. I recited the action and described the mythical gods and heroes in no less than a dozen Greek dramas, and at various times I discoursed at length upon the satiric comedies of Aristophanes, the tragedies of Euripides, the naval exploits of the great Themistocles, the eloquence of Demosthenes, the philosophy of Socrates, and the superb sculpture of Praxiteles. Then coming down five hundred years later to the days of Roman grandeur, I quoted many long since forgotten passages from Horace, Vergil and other poets and orators of the Golden Age. I declaimed, almost word for word, a famous oration by Cicero (which I had not read or heard since my school days, and of which I can now recall scarcely a single line), and likewise while raving over the epistolary attainments of Pliny the Younger I repeated the celebrated letter he wrote to his friend Maximus on the subject of downfallen Greece. Although the nurses and others who listened were dumfounded at such harangues coming from an invalid, lying at times almost at the point of death, they were not more astonished than I was, and still am, at such abnormal volubility. The night nurse--a patient soul, who bore the brunt of my hallucinations--afterwards told me she had been much alarmed, because she had somewhere read that the lamp of genius often flickers and throws out rays of unusual brilliance just before it expires. One morning, when I was well on the way to recovery, the head nurse looked in at the door and asked me how the “baby philosopher” was getting along.--“When you get well you must write a book.” I said that was exactly what I intended doing the moment I got strong enough to wield a pencil. By way of encouragement my day nurse--a humorous, high-spirited Colleen--said it reminded her of an obscure author she once had as a patient. During his illness he ranted constantly about a wonderful story he had just conceived--one that would make him both rich and famous; but a few days later he died without revealing the plot to anyone but herself. “Bring me a pad and pencil immediately,” I ordered. She did so, and most of this narrative was written in bed during the following weeks of convalescence. CONCLUSION