Page:Weird Tales v01n03 (1923-05).djvu/65



S I picked up my morning paper, the first item to catch my eye was the following:

"Felix Sayres; aged 69 years, who has been an inmate of the Eastwood Asylum for the Insane for the past thirty-five years, was found dead in his cell yesterday morning. At one time he was a well-known scientist of this city, but at the age of thirty-four became hopelessly insane, and has since been confined in the asylum, of which he was, at the time of his death, the oldest inmate."

Felix Sayres was my college chum, and in later years my closest friend, and now that he is dead I am at liberty to reveal the remarkable story concerning him, a part of which not even he has ever known, though a principal actor in the awful scene which has been indelibly stamped on my memory, haunting my waking hours and recurring to me in oft-repeated dreams.

My friend was a man of genius and ability, and had it not been for the terrible misfortune which came upon him, he would have become famous in the scientific world. Nearly all of his time, day and night, was given over to scientific research, in finding and working upon new hypotheses and bringing to light discoveries in that strange world into which he had evidently been born.

I was at that time his most intimate friend, and to me a great many of his hopes and secrets were confided. Many nights have I passed in his laboratory, listening to his explanation of some new theory, or aiding him in his experiments.

It was always a source of great pleasure to me thus to pass a portion of my time, although my mind was not of the same scientific trend as that of my friend. His theories were always so lucidly elaborated and so strong fundamentally that the most abstract of them seemed, even in the embryo, capable of actual demonstration, and so great was my confidence in him that I always stood ready to assist in any experiment or test.

At one point, however, I drew the line. Sayres, while none the less engaged with material subjects, was constantly dabbling in various psychical experiments with which I refused absolutely to have anything to do. The occult, I argued, should remain occult. Had it been intended that we should see beyond the things of this world the power would have been given us ages ago, I maintained, and the less one dealt with such unsolvable problems as vexed my friend the happier would be his life. Having no desire for knowledge of the supernatural, I studiously avoided all dealing with it, and it was tacitly understood, between Sayres and myself, that beyond the line of ordinary conversation the subject was forbidden. I knew, however, that for him the thing had great fascination and that my opinion did nothing to banish it from his mind.

At the time of which I write I had not seen Sayres for several weeks, as was often the case when he was deepest in his books and experiments. I had called at his laboratory, but his servant had said that no one was to be admitted, and I knew that it was useless to attempt to see him. At length I received a letter from him, saying that he had something of interest to disclose and urging me to "come tonight!"

When I arrived at my friend's laboratory I found him in a high state of nervous excitement, pacing back and forth like a caged tiger. He greeted me effusively, and with his usual directness, plunged at once into the matter at hand, which was evidently uppermost in his mind. Seating himself at the opposite side of the table and directly facing me, he began:

"Thornton, I want you to prepare yourself to hear of something that is to be entirely different from anything I have heretofore shown you. It is something that to mankind has always been vague, uncertain, unfathomable—something, in fact, that has existed only in imagination and in theory, but never in demonstration. I will show it to you tonight, and to the world tomorrow, in such a manner as entirely to revolutionize life and living, death and dying.

"As you very well know, my religious beliefs have always been skeptical; but any skepticism has arisen rather from insufficiency of faith with which to overcome the lack of direct evidence which mortals have concerning spiritual things than from stubborn unbelief. That there is a Supreme Being I have never doubted. His many works are too manifest, and it is impossible to conceive of such a creation as this earth and all its delicate mechanisms, and of the rest of the universe with all its unknown wonders, without some vast Supernatural oversight.

“Although I have never discussed the subject to any great extent, I have nursed it as a pet and secret hobby, and have spent many hours in work along certain lines in connection with it. In the beginning, I put finiteness aside from the question. The human mind, or soul, with its unlimited powers, has always been regarded by me as the most wonderful of all creations. I have been able to find no entirely satisfactory definition of this ‘mind’ from a purely physical standpoint, and therefore sought to obtain