1901
Sibylline Prophecy
About three months ago—that is to say, toward the end of May of this year of1900—the writer whose name appears on the title-page received as noteworthy aletter, and packet of papers, as it has been his lot to examine. They came froma very good friend of mine, whose name there is no reason that I should nowconceal—Dr. Arthur Lister Browne, M.A. (Oxon.), F.R.C.P. It happened that fortwo years I had been spending most of my time in France, and as Browne had aNorfolk practice, I had not seen him during my visits to London. Moreover,though our friendship was of the most intimate kind, we were both atrociouscorrespondents: so that only two notes passed between us during those years.
Till, last May, there reached me the letter—and the packet—to which I refer.The packet consisted of four note-books, quite crowded throughout with thosegiddy shapes of Pitman's shorthand, whose ensemble so resembles startledswarms hovering in flighty poses on the wing. They were scribbled in pencil,with little distinction between thick and thin strokes, few vowels: so thattheir slow deciphering, I can assure the reader, has been no holiday. Theletter also was pencilled in shorthand; and this letter, together with thesecond of the note-books which I have deciphered (it was marked 'III.'), I nowpublish.
[I must say, however, that in some five instances there will occur sentencesrather crutched by my own guess-work; and in two instances the characters wereso impossibly mystical, that I had to abandon the passage with a head-ache. Butall this will be found immaterial to the general narrative.]
The following is Browne's letter:
'DEAR OLD SHIEL,—I have just been lying thinking of you, and wishing that youwere here to give one a last squeeze of the hand before I—"go": for, byall appearance, "going" I am. Four days ago, I began to feel a soreness in thethroat, and passing by old Johnson's surgery at Selbridge, went in and askedhim to have a look at me. He muttered something about membranous laryngitiswhich made me smile, but by the time I reached home I was hoarse, and notsmiling: before night I had dyspnoca and laryngeal stridor. I at oncetelegraphed to London for Morgan, and, between him and Johnson, they have beenopening my trachea, and burning my inside with chromic acid and the galvaniccautery. The difficulty as to breathing has subsided, and it is wonderful howlittle I suffer: but I am much too old a hand not to know what's what: thebronchi are involved—too far involved—and as a matter of absolute fact,there isn't any hope. Morgan is still, I believe, fondly dwelling upon thepossibility of adding me to his successful-tracheotomy statistics, butprognosis was always my strong point, and I say No. The very small consolationof my death will be the beating of a specialist in his own line. So we shallsee.
'I have been arranging some of my affairs this morning, and remembered thesenotebooks. I intended letting you have them months ago, but my habit of puttingthings off, and the fact that the lady was alive from whom I took down thewords, prevented me. Now she is dead, and as a literary man, and a student oflife, you should be interested, if you can manage to read them. You may evenfind them valuable.
'I am under a little morphia at present, propped up in a nice little state oflanguor, and as I am able to write without much effort, I will tell you in theold Pitman's something about her. Her name was Miss Mary Wilson; she was aboutthirty when I met her, forty-five when she d