d. I was always quite resourceful and
could usually think of something untried.

I remembered that I had never consulted a homeopathic physician. This must
have been on my part an oversight, for I have the greatest esteem for this
class of medical men, mainly on account of their benign remedies. The one
I consulted told me that homeopaths did not treat a disease _name_, but
directed the remedy toward the symptoms at hand. This impressed me that he
would treat my case on its merits and without any guess-work. My relief
would depend upon correct statements in answer to all the doctor's
questions. He was very painstaking in this matter, and the questions asked
were many and diversified. One was: "Do you ever imagine that you see a
big spider crawling up the wall?" Another was: "Do you at times imagine
that you are falling from a high precipice?"

At the time I had a slight tonsillitis, and the doctor was careful to note
that it was the right tonsil involved. He told me that if it had been the
left one, the treatment would be entirely different. Up to this time I
had, in my ignorance of the human frame, supposed that the two halves were
the same in function and symmetrical in anatomy.

The doctor gave me a vial of little red pills about the size of beet
seeds, with explicit directions as to how to take them. If I exceeded the
dosage prescribed I endangered my life, for these pellets were of a high
potency. They were little two-edged swords which might cut both ways.

I took this medicine for perhaps a week; that was longer than I usually
confined myself to one remedy. One day, when in an extremely despondent
mood, I was seized with an impulse to kill myself. Neurasthenics, like
hysterical women, sometimes talk of suicide, but these threats are usually
made to attract attention and gain sympathy. Neither very often make any
well-directed efforts to get their threats into execution. But for me to
plan was to act; so I attempted the "rash act," as the newspapers
invariably call it, by swallowing the contents of that little vial. I then
performed a few ante-mortem details, such as writing good-byes to friends.
About the time I had all my arrangements made and was wondering if it was
not time for the medicine to exert its deadly effect, I changed my mind
about dying. The stuff had been so slow in its action that it had enabled
me to look at life from a different viewpoint. Life now seemed sweet to me
and it was so soon to pass