A long pause, and he went on gravely:
"Suicide, Frank, is always the temptation of the unfortunate, a great temptation."
"Suicide is the natural end of the world-weary," I replied; "but you enjoy life intensely. For you to talk of suicide is ridiculous."
"Do you know that my wife is dead, Frank?"[26]
"I had heard it," I said.
"My way back to hope and a new life ends in her grave," he went on. "Everything I do, Frank, is irrevocable."
He spoke with a certain grave sincerity.
"The great tragedies of the world are all final and complete; Socrates would not escape death, though Crito opened the prison door for him. I could not avoid prison, though you showed me the way to safety. We are fated to suffer, don't you think? as an example to humanity—'an echo and a light unto eternity.'"
"I think it would be finer, instead of taking the punishment lying down, to trample it under your feet, and make it a rung of the ladder."