Only yesterday I saw lying upon that familiar slab, an old, old man--found dead in bed with his throat cut from ear to ear, a letter in his hand saying only this: “I am tired, so tired.” “What a pity it is,” I thought, as I looked at the fearful gash through which swollen tongue and severed larynx protruded, at the blood bathed clod which perchance had once been loved, “that this man should have lived so long without learning a way.” Then there was that dead man I saw taken from the river the other day. His friends knew of his business troubles and feared he had suicided. They sought for him for days and days, poor fools. They found him at last, and he went the way of all the others--to that vile slab. I was there when his sweetheart came to see his remains. They tried to keep her out, but she entered the room in spite of them. I was not surprised at what happened. The transition from her ideal, the lover of her memory, to that slimy, oozy, bloated thing with the maggots swarming from its nose and eyes and ears, was enough to shock a stronger heart than hers. She died in a mad house, screaming against the maggots that she fancied were devouring her. Ah, there’s much of comfort in the thought that one has learned a way, and that my work in science has not all come to naught. How I admire that man of whom my friend Dr. X. told me this morning, who laughed at the doctors who worked a whole night over him, trying to save him from self poisoning. He would revive for a moment under their efforts and mutter, “No you don’t, d--n you,--you can’t do it!” and then lapse into coma again. He knew a way, did that man. The stupid doctors did not know. He, like myself, was a chemist. Was he merely defiant, or was it professional pride that animated him when he challenged those fool doctors, who came to interfere with his plans, but knew nothing of the symptoms produced by a clever admixture of laudanum and potassium cyanide? I glory in that noble man’s artistic achievement--I glory in his vindication of individual rights. * * * * * Existence is growing absolutely insupportable to me. My synthetic experiments with organic elements which seemed so promising have come to naught. Another of my failures! I haven’t the energy to begin all over again, neither am I disposed to devise experiments in other fields. My brain is pumped out, like a dry well. My heart is dead. I suppose one might live with a dead heart, but what’s the use? I begin to believe that it is time to--well, to follow the _way_. There, in that bottle upon the shelf, are four grains of--I wonder if my figuring was correct? There’s surely enough. But suppose there should be too much? Pshaw! Why do I doubt? My experimental provings have been too carefully made to admit of suspicion of inaccuracy. That huge dog which--