SOURCE: "A Suicide's Book," in The New York Times Book Review, August 16, 1914, p. 349.

Kilmer was an American educator, journalist, and poet. In the following review ofMonologues, he offers a negative appraisal ofMiddleton's posthumously published collection of essays.

It is of no use to say that people ought not to kill themselves. They will do it.

Yes, they will do it. Richard Middleton, the brilliant young poet who wrote these words, died by his own hand soon after they were published.

"Suicide and the State" is by no means the best of the essays that make up the volume called Monologues but on account of his untimely death it has special and lamentable interest. Richard Middleton was one of those essayists who gain their effects by writing seriously of trifles and flippantly of great things. Therefore it might be expected that his treatment of suicide would be fantastic, humorous...