Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895 Excerpt: ...my poor beloved brother, who has not spoken or even recovered consciousness since two o'clock on Thursday afternoon. I am listening to his panting breath. I can see the fixity of his eyes in the shadow of the curtain. Every moment I feel the light touch of the arm which he throws out from under the coverlet, while from his mouth issue words which convey no meaning. The rays of the moon rising above the tall black trees enter through the open window, and shed a white light across the floor.... The sinister silence is relieved only by the ticking of our father's repeater, the watch by which I feel, from time to time, the pulse of his youngest born. "In spite of three doses of bromide of potassium, taken in a quarter of a glass of water, he cannot sleep a single moment, and his head moves about on his pillow, turning incessantly from left to right, murmuring the senseless noise of a poor paralysed brain, whilst from the corners of his mouth issue snatches of sound, suggestions of phrases, inarticulate syllables forcibly uttered, but eventually dying away in soft sighs.... In the distance I hear a dog howling at the mysterious approach of death.... 'Ah! it is the hour when the blackbirds sing, trilling under the rosy sky. "In a few days, nay, in a few hours, the sole happiness of a life filled with this one affection will desert me, and I shall be left face to face with the frightful solitude of an old man alone in the world.... "Four o'clock in the morning.--Death approaches! I feel it in his quickened breathing, and in the agitation which succeeds the comparative quiet of yesterday; his poor head lies back upon the white pillow, and the shadow of his thin profile, and of his long moustache, is east by the light of a dying candle struggling with...
