Phosphor: An Ischian Mystery. John Filmore Sherry

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       John Filmore Sherry

      Phosphor: An Ischian Mystery

      Published by Good Press, 2021

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066442941

Table of Contents

       PREFACE.

       PHOSPHOR

       AN ISCHIAN MYSTERY.

PREFACE.

       Table of Contents

      One evening about three months ago—at a card party given, by a Bohemian acquaintance of mine—I met a man who interested me strangely. We seemed instinctively to take a fancy to each other, and, when we left, exchanged addresses—he promising to call at my hotel the following evening.

      He did so, and we sat talking and smoking until past midnight.

      Occasionally he would stop in the middle of a sentence and tail into a reverie, then would rouse himself with an effort and continue what he was saying. This is the only peculiarity I noticed about him.

      During our conversation he casually mentioned that he was thirty years old. This I rather doubted, as he looked at least over forty. He did not seem at all well, and I told him he should take care of himself.

      He laughed, and said that he had consumption, and that the pleasure he would lose by taking care of himself would hardly compensate for the extra few weeks he might live.

      After this we visited each other constantly, until one day, calling on him, I was told he had left. At the end of a week I received a letter asking me to come and see him at Queenscliff; he added that he wished to see me particularly.

      I went and found him very ill. He told me he did not expect to live more than a few days. I insisted on his obtaining medical advice.

      To avoid an inquest he consented. The doctor confirmed his prognosis, adding that he might die at any moment.

      He look it very quietly, and said he was not very sorry.

      He died a week after my arrival; the day before, he gave me a packet of papers, with instructions to read them after he was dead.

      He assured me what I would read in them was perfectly true and had occurred to himself. He also gave me permission to publish them if I cared to. He gave me his solicitors' address, and asked me to forward his will and a few other papers to them. He died on the 28th of July last. After his death I did as he had requested.

      I read the papers be had given me, and determined to have them published. If they are true they are wonderful.

      He showed me the lock of hair alluded to in the following pages, but would not give it me.

      That was all he had to vouch for the truth of what he had written. On the other hand, he may have thought he passed through it all in the delirium caused by the snake-bite and earthquake combined. I will not make any comments, but leave it for all who read his story to decide. I copy it verbatim from his papers.

      ​

PHOSPHOR:

       AN ISCHIAN MYSTERY.

       Table of Contents

      CHAPTER I.

      When the world reads this it will in all probability put me down as a madman, but in this as in many other instances the world will be wrong.

      It would be no wonder if I was mad after what I passed through, yet I do not think at any time my senses were clearer than they are at present.

      When the world has a chance (and it usually has) of saying anything good or bad about a man or woman it will generally choose the latter, and I do not blame it; for taking the general run of men and women (I cannot leave them out) there is far more bad (luckily never seen or shown), than there is of good which is paraded on the surface for the world to see, and each individual knowing how much he or she conceals, at once judges others by himself or herself.

      However, for what the world will say I care nothing; in fact when this is published I shall probably be where the opinion of the world can ​have no effect upon me; and if I should be alive the few people who know me, and perchance may guess I have written these pages, will either believe me or else I shall lose the little friendship they may have for me.

      That will not matter, as there is not a single soul now living for whom I feel the slightest love or interest. I shall not use my real name, as I have no desire for notoriety, nor do I wish people to gaze askance at me as a natural curiosity while walking about the streets.

      Men consider me morose; for women I feel no interest, so their opinion troubles me even less than that of men. None of my acquaintances know anything concerning my past life, therefore, I shall have no hesitation in giving an accurate account of a few needful particulars in reference to my family and early history.

      My mother was English, but had been brought up in Italy (that land of a thousand memories) and had lived in Naples the greater part of her life before she met my father; he was also English, and whilst travelling through Naples had seen her. He stayed there for some time, then married and took her back to England with him. I was their only child, and was born on the 28th July, 1856, in Queen's Road, Peckham, near London.

      ​My father was a speculator, and had made a large fortune; success made him sanguine, he embarked his whole capital with his dearest friend in an undertaking from which he expected to retire a millionaire.

      His friend proved a swindler, and one morning he woke up to find himself ruined. The blow proved too much for him.

      In the evening he said good-night to my mother as usual, and retired to his study.

      In the morning he was not in his room when the servant knocked, so she informed my mother, who arose with terrible forebodings, and hastened to the library. The door was locked. They knocked—received no answer—broke it down, and there, sitting in his arm-chair before his desk, was all that remained of my father.

      He left a letter to my mother, saying he had lost everything, and, being old, did not see any chance of recovering his losses, so thought the best thing he could do was to kill himself.

      He called down the vengeance of God on the wretch who had ruined him, and ended by asking her to forgive him for leaving her.

      I will pass over the inquest, merely stating that the verdict was suicide from prussic acid. My mother was very ill for some time, and when she ​recovered we moved to Kent, and rented a pretty cottage.

      Oh! thou beautiful county, how I now long for those peaceful days spent amongst thy woods and green fields.

      When our affairs were settled my mother found she only had five hundred a year, which had fortunately been settled on her at her marriage.

      She could not bear me out of her sight; so, instead of sending me to school, she procured me a tutor, who, seeing I had an aptitude for learning, took pains to teach me all he knew, and he being an extremely clever man, I derived no small benefit from his services.

      I had no companions of my own age, and having little else to do, found the time passed with him was the most