The Argosy — page 86: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Latimer’s Novel. 73 committed the crime so gruesomely described in ‘ Wilful Murder,’ and had been arrested in consequence !” The Court of Justice, packed to the ceiling with eager spectators, was hushed as death. The judge, black-capped, had just pronounced the doom of the wretched prisoner at the bar. And now the miserable man in his ghastly calmness confronted the sea of faces turned upon him. ‘My lord,” he said in hollow tones, looking towards his judge, “I have a few brief words to say.” Then to the silent throng before him—*‘‘ To you,” he cried, raising his right arm in solemn accusation, ‘‘to you, representing the world I am to leave so soon; to you, representing the public to please whom I perilled soul and body, I say my last earthly words—on your conscience I lay my early and shameful death! I was a writer. I yearned for fame—the fame you give by your favour and applause. And what are the qualities for which you give a writer fame? Do you demand wit, fancy, scholarship, eloquence, noble sentiments, vivid presentments of nature? No; you ask for none of these! You ask for horror and crime described realistically—above all, realistically! In a frenzy, to gain your applause and give you your demand, I have dipped my hands in blood! I have stained my soul and forfeited my life to please the taste of the Reading Public! Behold your work and my reward !” With his voice raised to a shout, which died away in the murmurs of the crowded audience—Fred awoke. He was lying in his easy-chair in his quarters at the Shaft Barracks, Dover, with the MS. of a sensational story before him. His frame was quivering, great drops of emotion poured from his brow. For a moment—so vivid had been his dream—he believed that all he had gone through was real. Then, as he recognised that it was du¢ a dream—‘‘Is it a warning, I wonder?” he asked himself. Then, again, after a minute or two of musing—‘ After all, I don’t think I’ll leave the Service ; and for the fresené, at any rate, I’ll give up writing ‘penny dreadfuls.’ ” And he threw his MS, into the fire. e SS (CO) im VOL, XLVI. COMIGOOo