Lesser, but still great price, too, has been paid. Jealous hatred,
misery and failure for the being I care most for in the world, the shame
of a sordid scandal to those that hold me dear, the hopeless love and
speedy mourning of a woman not without greatness.
I have tried to make a Tom Fool of Destiny--and Destiny has proved
itself to be the superior jester of the two, and has made a grim and
bedraggled Tom Fool of me.
. . . I must end this. I have just fallen in a faint on the floor, and
Rogers has revived me with some drops Hunnington had given me in view of
such a contingency.
These are the last words I shall write. Life is too transcendentally
humorous for a man not to take it seriously. Compared with it, Death is
but a shallow jest.
CHAPTER XVI
It is many weeks since I wrote those words which I thought were to be
my last. I read them over now, and laugh aloud. Life is more devilishly
humorous than I in my most nightmare dreams ever imagined. Instead of
dying at Mentone as I proposed, I am here, at Mustapha Superieur, still
living.
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