Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
“‘I HAD STEPPED OUT UPON THE SUMMIT, AND STOOD TRANSFIXED WITH THE GLORY OF AN ENDLESS VISION OF DAWN’”
The Overman
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATIONINTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
The Overman
This is the story of Edward——, as he told it to meonly a few days before he died;he told it as he lay half paralysed,and knowing that thehand of death was upon him.
I am by profession a scientist.My story goes back some fiftyyears, when I was a student. Ihad one brother, Daniel, fiveyears younger than myself,a musician of extraordinarypromise. We lived abroadtogether for a number of years,4each pursuing his own work.About my brother, suffice it tosay that music to him waseverything—love and friendship,ambition and life. He was aman without a stain, whoselower nature had been burnedout by the flame of art. I thinkthe one tie that bound him tothe world was myself.
When Daniel was abouttwenty-three years of age, hishealth weakened, and a longsea voyage was decided upon.I could not go with him, so forthe first time we parted; and itwas twenty years after thatbefore I ever heard of himagain.
5It was believed that the shiphad been wrecked in the SouthSeas; and I had given him upfor dead many years, when itchanced that, as a man advancedin life, I was travellingas a naturalist in Ceylon, andmet an old sailor who had beenwith my brother, and who toldme a strange story—how oneboat containing five men, includingDaniel