good evening everyone this edition of miscellaneous Monday brings with it a classic spooky tale from one of my favorite authors of short horror literature Ambrose Bierce come in a bit closer to the campfire now so you too can fully enjoy this little town from the late 18-hundreds a diagnosis of death by Ambrose Bierce I am not so superstitious as some of your physicians men of science as you are pleased to be called said hover replying to an accusation that had not been made some of you only a f
ew I confess believed in the immortality of the soul and in apparitions which you have not the honesty to call ghosts I go no further than a conviction that the living are sometimes seen where they are not but have been where they have lived so long perhaps so intensely as to have left their impressed on everything about them I know indeed that one's environment may be so affected by one's personality as to yield long afterward an image of oneself to the eyes of another doubtless the impressing
personality has to be the right kind of personality as the perceiving eyes have to be the right kind of eyes mine for example yes the right kind of eyes conveying sensations to the wrong kind of brain said dr. Fraley smiling thank you one likes to have an expectation gratified and that is about the reply that I supposed you would have this ability to make pardon me but you say that you know that is a good deal assay don't you think perhaps you will not mind the trouble of saying how you learned
you will call it an hallucination however said but that does not matter and he told the story last summer I went as you know to pass the hot weather term in the town of Meridian the relative at whose house I'd intended to stay was ill so I sought other quarters after some difficulty I succeeded in renting a vacant dwelling that had been occupied by an eccentric doctor of the name Mannering who had gone away years before no one knew where not even his agent he had built the house himself and had
lived in it with an old servant for about ten years his practice never very extensive had after a few years been given up entirely not only so but he had withdrawn himself almost altogether from social life and become a recluse I was told by the village doctor about the only person with whom he had any relations that during his retirement he had devoted himself to a single line of study the result of which he had expounded in a book that did not commend itself to the approval of his professional
brethren who indeed didn't suit him not entirely sane I have not seen the book and cannot recall the title of it but I am told that expounded a rather startling theory he held that it was possible in the case of many a person in good health to forecast his death with precision several months in advance of the event the limit I think was nineteen months there were local tales of his having exerted his powers of prognosis or perhaps you would say diagnosis and he was said that in every instance t
he person whose friends he had warned had died suddenly at the appointed time and from no assignable cause all this however has nothing to do with what I have to tell I thought it might amuse of this issue the house was furnished just as he had lived in it it was a rather gloomy dwelling for one who was neither a recluse nor a student but I think it gave something of its character to me perhaps some of its former occupants character for I always felt in a certain melancholy that was not in my na
tural disposition nor I think due to longing us I had no service that slept in the house but I have always been as you know rather fond of my own society being much addicted to reading though little to study and whatever the cause the effect was the ejection in a sense of impending evil this was especially so in dr. Mannering study although that room was the lightest the most area in the house the doctors life-size portrait and oil hung in that room and seemed completely to dominate it there was
nothing unusual in the picture the man was evidently good-looking about 50 years old with iron-gray hair a smooth shaven face and dark serious eyes something in the picture always drew and held my attention the man's appearance became familiar to me and rather haunted me one evening as I was passing through this room to my bedroom with a lamp there is no gas in meridian I stopped as usual before the portrait which seemed in the lamplight to have a new expression not easily named but distinctly
uncanny it interested but did not disturb me I moved the lamp from one side to the other and observed the effects of the altered light also engaged I felt an impulse to turn around I did I saw a man moving across the room directly toward me as soon as he came near and off with a lamp light to illuminate the face I saw that it was dr. Mannering himself as if the portrait were walking I beg your pardon I said somewhat coldly but if you not died did not hear he passed me within an arm's length lift
ed his right forefinger and as a warning and without a word we don't have the room though I observed his exit no more than I observed his entrance of course I need not tell you that this was what you will call loosen a ssin and I call an apparition that room had only two doors one of which was locked the other led into a bedroom from which there was no exit my feeling on realizing this is not an important part of the incident doubtless this seems to you a very commonplace ghost story one constru
cted on the regular lines laid down by the old masters of the art if that were so I should not have related it even if it were true the man was not dead I met him today in Union Street he passed me in a crowd however had finished his story and both men were silent dr. Fraley absently drummed on the table with his fingers did he say anything today he asked anything from which you inferred that he was not dead Oliver stared and did not reply perhaps continued Fraley he made a sign a gesture lifted
a finger as if in the morning it's a tricky head I have it when saying something serious announcing the result of a diagnosis for example yes he did and just as this apparition had done but good gone did you know him Oliver was apparently growing nervous I knew him I have read his book as will every physician someday it is one of the most striking and important of the centuries contributions to medical science yes I knew him I attended him in an illness three years ago he died Hoffer sprang fro
m his chair manifestly disturbed he strode forward and back across the room then approached his friend and in a voice not altogether steady said doctor have you anything to say to me as a physician no however you're the healthiest man I ever knew as a friend I advise you to go to your room you play the violin like an angel play it play something light and lively get this car said bad business off your mind the next day however was found dead in his room the violin at his neck the bow upon the st
rings his music opened before him shall pons you neural March well dear viewers I hope you enjoyed tonight's read if you did you know the drill click those little buttons below to bestow your favor upon your humble narrator good night and see you all real soon
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