Excerpt from The Man Who Might Have Been: A Lost Biography He died at noontime, in the noontide of the year. Like one of old, whom otherwise he least resembled, death met him in the fullness of his powers. His eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. One moment he talked with his beloved about the common things of daily life - about the midday meal. Another moment and his heart had ceased to beat, the color had fled from his cheeks, the strong limbs were limp and helpless, and the watchers in hushed accents and with frightened faces whispered, He is dead. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.