Ambrose Bierce

“ He strode forward and back across the room; then approached his friend, and in a voice not altogether steady, said:
"Doctor, have you anything to say to me—as a physician?"
"No, Hawver; you are the healthiest man I ever knew. As a friend I advise you to go to your room. You play the violin like an angel. Play it; play something light and lively. ”

“ I go no further than a conviction that the living are sometimes seen where they are not, but have been—where they have lived so long, perhaps so intensely, as to have left their impress on everything about them. I know, indeed, that one's environment may be so affected by one's personality as to yield, long afterward, an image of one's self to the eyes of another. Doubtless the impressing personality has to be the right kind of personality as the perceiving eyes have to be the right kind of eyes—mine, for example. ”

“ It's a trick he had a habit when saying something serious announcing the result of a diagnosis, for example."
"Yes, he did—just as his apparition had done. But, good God! did you ever know him?"
Hawver was apparently growing nervous.
"I knew him. I have read his book, as will every physician some day. It is one of the most striking and important of the century's contributions to medical science. Yes, I knew him; I attended him in an illness three years ago. He died." ”