He saw that my eye was upon him; and I could perceive that his mind
struggled desperately with the infirmity of his nature, as if ashamed of
the utter weakness of its tabernacle. He passed hastily up and down the
room. "You seem somewhat ill," I said, in the undecided tone of partial
interrogatory.

He paused, and passed his long thin fingers over his forehead. "I am
indeed ill," he said, slowly, and with that quavering, deep-drawn
breathing, which is so indicative of anguish, mental and physical.
"I am weak as a child, weak alike in mind and body, even when I am under
the immediate influence of yonder drug." And he pointed, as he spoke,
to a phial, labelled "Laudanum," upon a table in the corner of the room.

"My dear sir," said I, "for God's sake abandon your desperate practice:
I know not, indeed, the nature of your afflictions, but I feel assured
that you have yet the power to be happy. You have, at least, warm
friends to sympathize with you. But forego, if possible, your
pernicious stimulant of laudanum. It is hurrying you to your grave."

"It may be so," he replied, while another shudder ran along his nerves;
"but why should I fear it? I, who have become worthless to myself and
annoying to my friends; exquisitely sensible of my true condition, yet
wanting the power to change it; cursed with a lively apprehension of all
that I ought now to be, yet totally incapable of even making an effort
to be so! My dear sir, I feel deeply the kindness of your motives, but
it is too late for me to hope to profit by your advice."

I was shocked at his answer. "But can it be possible," said I, "that
the influence of such an excessive use of opium can produce any