The works of Edgar Allan Poe; newly collected and edited, with a memoir, critical introductions, and notes, by Edmund Clarence Stedman and George Edward Woodberry; the illustrations by Albert Edward Sterner.

TALES OF PSEUDO-SCIENCE
his custom, indeed, to speak calmly of his approach.
Ing dissolution as of a matter neither to be avoided
nor regretted.
When the ideas to which I have alluded first occurred to me, it was of course very natural that I
should think of M. Valdemar. I knew the steady
philosophy of the man too well to apprehend any
scruples from him; and he had no relatives in America
who would be likely to interfere. I spoke to him
frankly upon the subject; and, to my surprise, his
interest seemed vividly excited. I say to my sur.
prise; for, although he had always yielded his person
freely to my experiments, he had never before given
me any tokens of sympathy with what I did. His
disease was of that character which would admit
of exact calculation in respect to the epoch of its
termination in death; and it was finally arranged
between us that he would send for me about twentyfour hours before the period announced by his physicians as that of his decease.
It is now rather more than seven months since I
received, from M. Valdemar himself, the subjoined
note:
"MY DEAR P, You may as well come now. D —
and F -are agreed that I cannot hold out beyond tomorrow midnight and I think they have hit the time very
nearly.
" VALDEMAR."
I received this note within half an hour after it
was written, and in fifteen minutes more I was in the
dying man's chamber. I had not seen him for ten
days, and was appalled by the fearful alteration which
the brief interval had wrought in him. His face wore
a leaden hue; the eyes were utterly lustreless; and
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