e me, the deep state of melancholy into which I soon
fell; but the malady manifested itself upon this occasion, for it had
been lurking about me for a long time, as the dormant pain of a wound is
aroused if one pours a caustic upon its surface.

"There is some dominant power in each individual which is developed at
the expense of the other faculties, above all when the profession one
chooses suits his nature. The vital powers thus condensed manifest
themselves externally, and gush out with an abundance which would become
impossible if all the faculties were used alike, and if life filtered
away, so to speak. To avoid such destruction, and concentrate life upon
one point, in order to increase the action, is the price of talent and
individuality. Among athletes, the forehead contracts according as the
chest enlarges; with men of thought, it is the brain which causes the
other organs to suffer, insatiable vampire, exhausting at times the last
drop of blood in the body which serves as its victim. This vampire was
my torturer.

"For ten years I had crowded romance upon poetry, vaudeville upon drama,
literary criticism upon leader; I proved, through my own self, in
a physical way, the phenomena of the absorption of the senses by
intelligence. Many times, after several nights of hard work, the chords
of my mind being too violently stretched, they relaxed and gave only
indistinct harmony. Then, if I happened to resist this lassitude of
nature demanding repose, I felt the pressure of my will exhausting the
sources at the very depths of my being. It seemed to me that I dug out
my ideas from the bottom of a mine, instead of gathering them upon the
surface of the brain. The more material organs came to the rescue of
their failing chief. The blood from my heart rushed to my head to revive
it; the muscles of my limbs communicated to the fibres of the brain
their galvanic tension. Nerves turned into imagination, flesh into life.
Nothing has developed my materialistic beliefs like this decarnation of
which I had such a sensible, or rather visible perception.

"I destroyed my health with these psychological experiments, and the
abuse of work perhaps shortened my life. When I was thirty years old
my face was wrinkled, my cheeks were pallid, and my heart blighted and
empty. For what result, grand Dieu! For a fleeting and fruitless renown!

"The failure of my two plays warned me that others judged me as I judged
myself. I recalled to mi