A Piteous Case

Xavier Aubryet is dead, after seven years of atrocious sufferinga from the horrible malady that tortured and killed Henri Heine - namely, decay of the spinal marrow. The agonies that the poor author'endured were by him deseribed in vivid terms. In nis preface to "Our Neighbors' Home and Our Own," he speaks of himself as having his whole skeleton "as sensitivo as a decaved tooth." In one of his notes addre8sed to M. Villemessant (for he was for years attached to the staS of the Figaro) he declares that 'his body contains a Marinoni engine that issues 15,000 pangs a day.' To add to his misery, his eyesight gradual ly forsook him, and when he died he was barely able to distinguish light from darkness. The blindness brought upon him an added stroke, perhaps the sharpest of them all. In his days aLJ health he bad wrilten a book u Tin ophlle de Visu. It was the beloved toil of bis lile, his masterpiece, ïiichief claim lo posthunious honors and enduring fame. A lew montlis ago he deeided to publish this work. He caused it to be drawn from its hidirig place and pu into his hands. He caressed it fondly, turned over the pages that he could no longer see, and then offered it to his secretary. "Kead it!" he cried. Alas! that was impossible. The peculiar handwriting of Xavier Aubryet, minute, flowing, almost feminine in its character, had become, under the first pressure of the terrible malady that consumed him, an Ilegible scribbling. He alone could have read it, and be was blind. Friends and experts in handwriting both did all they could, but all efforts were in vain. The book remains a sealed volume. It never will be it had perished with its author.