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Boake's suicide was an appeal to Death to end his hopelessness as Life had ended hope. For him, of course, the wisdom of the act was conditioned by the circumstances: he could no other than he did. I have already indicated what those circumstances were. A weak heart and sensitive brain brought him into the Debatable Land: tobacco led him to the edge of the precipice. The memory of the mock hanging at Rocklands was always tempting him to look down the dizzy depths. He looked and drew back; looked and drew back;—then, to aid the pressure of daily worries and the prepossessions of a lifetime came the blow to his lover's dreams, and, looking, he leaped.