We continued to talk for some time, and seeing that he was seemingly
quite reasonable, she ventured, looking at me questioningly as she
began, to lead him to his favourite topic. I was again astonished,
for he addressed himself to the question with the impartiality of
the completest sanity. He even took himself as an example when he
mentioned certain things.
"Why, I myself am an instance of a man who had a strange belief.
Indeed, it was no wonder that my friends were alarmed, and insisted on
my being put under control. I used to fancy that life was a positive
and perpetual entity, and that by consuming a multitude of live
things, no matter how low in the scale of creation, one might
indefinitely prolong life. At times I held the belief so strongly
that I actually tried to take human life. The doctor here will bear
me out that on one occasion I tried to kill him for the purpose of
strengthening my vital powers by the assimilation with my own body of
his life through the medium of his blood, relying of course, upon the
Scriptural phrase, 'For the blood is the life.' Though, indeed, the
vendor of a certain nostrum has vulgarized the truism to the very
point of contempt. Isn't that true, doctor?"
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