"I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dryrot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time" --Jack …showed first 75 words of 1126 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1126 total…fire before the Londons could move into it (Unger 467). In July, 1916, he returned to his ranch in California, in poor and deteriorating health. He had become dependent on a variety of painkilling drugs, and on November 22,1916-suffering an agonizing intestinal attack-he took a fatal overdose of morphine. On the death certificate, London’s family doctor gave the cause as an acute attack of a "gastro-intestinal type of uremia"-no mention of the drug overdose (Gale 5).