iver which, passing over my skin, has upset my
nerves and given me low spirits? Is it the form of the clouds, or the
colour of the sky, or the colour of the surrounding objects which is so
changeable, which have troubled my thoughts as they passed before my
eyes? Who can tell? Everything that surrounds us, everything that we see
without looking at it, everything that we touch without knowing it,
everything that we handle without feeling it, all that we meet without
clearly distinguishing it, has a rapid, surprising and inexplicable
effect upon us and upon our organs, and through them on our ideas and on
our heart itself.

How profound that mystery of the Invisible is! We cannot fathom it with
our miserable senses, with our eyes which are unable to perceive what is
either too small or too great, too near to, or too far from us; neither
the inhabitants of a star nor of a drop of water ... with our ears that
deceive us, for they transmit to us the vibrations of the air in
sonorous notes. They are fairies who work the miracle of changing that
movement into noise, and by that metamorphosis give birth to music,
which makes the mute agitation of nature musical ... with our sense of
smell which is smaller than that of a dog ... with our sense of taste
which can scarcely distinguish the age of a wine!

Oh! If we only had other organs which would work other miracles in our
favour, what a number of fresh things we might discover around us!

_May 16th._ I am ill, decidedly! I was so well last month! I am
feverish, horribly feverish, or rather I am in a state of feverish
enervation, which makes my mind suffer as much as my body. I have
without ceasing that horrible sensation of some danger threatening me,
that apprehension of some coming misfortune or of approaching death,
that presentiment which is, no doubt, an attack of some illness which is
still unknown, which germinates in the flesh and in the blood.

_May 18th._ I have just come from consulting my medical man, for I could
no longer get any sleep. He found that my pulse was high, my eyes
dilated, my nerves highly strung, but no alarming symptoms. I must have
a course of shower-baths and of bromide of potassium.

_May 25th._ No change! My state is really very peculiar. As the evening
comes on, an incomprehensible feeling of disquietude seizes me, just as
if night concealed some terrible menace toward me. I dine quickly, and
then try to read, but I do not understand the word