Lifted Veil

The time of my end approaches. I have lately been subject to attacks of angina pectoris. And in the ordinary course of things, my physician tells me, I may fairly hope that my life will not be protracted many months. Unless, then, I am cursed with an exceptional physical mental character, I shall not much longer groan under the wearisome burthen of this earthly existence.

If it were to be otherwise, if I were to live on to the age most men desire and provide for, I should for once have known whether the miseries of delusive expectation can outweigh the miseries of true provision. For I foresee when I shall die. Everything that will happen in my last moments.

Just a month from this day, on September 20, 1850, I shall be sitting in this chair, in this study, at ten o'clock at night, longing to die, weary of incessant insight and foresight, without delusions ans without hope. Just as I am watching a tongue of blue flame rising in the fire. And my lamp is burning low, the horrible contraction will begin at my chest.