He despised himself as a weakling and a coward, but he did not get more than a transient victory over his enemy.  The spark had struck a sensitive organization, and the fire of hell, smothered for the time, would blaze out again.  He was fast becoming a common drunkard, the accursed appetite growing stronger, and his will weakening in accordance with that terrible law by which man’s physical and moral nature visits retribution on all who cross its path.  During a term of the court over which he presided, he was taken home one night drunk.  A pistol-shot was heard by persons in the vicinity some time before daybreak; but pistol-shots, at all hours of the night, were then too common to excite special attention.  Horace B—­was found next morning lying on the floor with a bullet through his head.  Many a stout, heavy-bearded man had, wet eyes when the body of the ill-fated and brilliant young Virginian was let down into the grave, which had been dug for him on the hill overlooking the town from the south-east.

In the same town there was a portrait-painter, a quiet, pleasant fellow, with a good face and easy, gentlemanly ways.  As an artist, he was not without merit, but his gift fell short of genius.  He fell in love with a charming girl, the eldest daughter of a leading citizen.  She could not return his passion.  The enamored artist still loved, and hoped against hope, lingering near her like a moth around a candle.  There was another and more favored suitor in the case, and the rejected lover had all his hopes killed at one blow by her marriage to his rival.  He felt that without her life was not worth living.  He resolved to kill himself, and swallowed the contents of a two-ounce bottle of laudanum.  After he had done the rash deed, a reaction took place.  He told what he had done, and a physician was sent for.  Before the doctor’s arrival, the deadly drug asserted its power, and this repentant suicide began to show signs of going into a sleep from which it was certain he would never awake.

“My God!  What have I done?” he exclaimed in horror.  “Do your best, boys, to keep me from going to sleep before the doctor gets here.”

The doctor came quickly, and by the prompt and very vigorous use of the stomach-pump he was saved.  I was sent for, and found the would-be suicide looking very weak, sick, silly, and sheepish.  He got well, and went on making pictures; but the picture of the fair, sweet girl, for love of whom he came so near dying, never faded from his mind.  His face always wore a sad look, and he lived the life of a recluse, but he never attempted suicide again—­he had had enough of that.

“It always makes me shudder to look at that place,” said a lady, as we passed an elegant cottage on the western side of Russian Hill, San Francisco.

“Why so?  The place to me looks specially cheerful and attractive, with its graceful slope, its shrubbery, flowers, and thick greensward.”

“Yes, it is a lovely place, but it has a history that it shocks me to think of.  Do you see that tall pumping-apparatus, with water-tank on top, in the rear of the house?”