n this
brief diary. Truth to tell, I have been afraid to set it down in black
and white. I have kept it in the background of my thoughts, preventing
it as far as possible from taking shape. In spite of my efforts,
however, it has continued to grow stronger.

Now that I come to face the issue squarely, it is harder to express than
I imagined. Like a half-remembered melody that trips in the head but
vanishes the moment you try to sing it, these thoughts form a group in
the background of my mind, _behind_ my mind, as it were, and refuse to
come forward. They are crouching ready to spring, but the actual leap
never takes place.

In these rooms, except when my mind is strongly concentrated on my own
work, I find myself suddenly dealing in thoughts and ideas that are not
my own! New, strange conceptions, wholly foreign to my temperament, are
forever cropping up in my head. What precisely they are is of no
particular importance. The point is that they are entirely apart from
the channel in which my thoughts have hitherto been accustomed to flow.
Especially they come when my mind is at rest, unoccupied; when I'm
dreaming over the fire, or sitting with a book which fails to hold my
attention. Then these thoughts which are not mine spring into life and
make me feel exceedingly uncomfortable. Sometimes they are so strong
that I almost feel as if someone were in the room beside me, thinking
aloud.

Evidently my nerves and liver are shockingly out of order. I must work
harder and take more vigorous exercise. The horrid thoughts never come
when my mind is much occupied. But they are always there--waiting and as
it were _alive_.

What I have attempted to describe above came first upon me gradually
after I had been some days in the house, and then grew steadily in
strength. The other strange thing has come to me only twice in all
these weeks. _It appals me._ It is the consciousness of the propinquity
of some deadly and loathsome disease. It comes over me like a wave of
fever heat, and then passes off, leaving me cold and trembling. The air
seems for a few seconds to become tainted. So penetrating and convincing
is the thought of this sickness, that on both occasions my brain has
turned momentarily dizzy, and through my mind, like flames of white
heat, have flashed the ominous names of all the dangerous illnesses I
know. I can no more explain these visitations than I can fly, yet I know
there is no dreaming about the clammy skin an