as not stayed. Then--I recollect it was in the middle of the London
season--one of my horrible fits of unreasonable melancholy swept over
me. It stunned my soul like a heavy blow. It numbed me. I could not go
about. I could not bear to see anybody. I could only shut myself up and
try to reason myself back into my usual gaiety and excitement. My
writing was put aside. My piano was locked. I tried to read, but even
that solace was denied to me. My attention was utterly self-centred,
riveted upon my own condition.

"Why, I said to myself, am I the victim of this despair, this despair
without a cause? What is this oppression which weighs me down without
reason? It attacks me abruptly, as if it were sent to me by some power,
shot at me like an arrow by an enemy hidden in the dark. I am well--I am
gay. Life is beautiful and wonderful to me. All that I do interests me.
My soul is full of vitality. I know that I have troops of friends, that
I am loved and thought of by many people. And then suddenly the arrow
strikes me. My soul is wounded and sickens to death. Night falls over
me, night so sinister that I shudder when its twilight comes. All my
senses faint within me. Life is at once a hag, weary, degraded, with
tears on her cheeks and despair in her hollow eyes. I feel that I am
deserted, that my friends despise me, that the world hates me, that I am
less than all other men--less in powers, less in attraction--that I am
the most crawling, the most grovelling of all the human species, and
that there is no one who does not know it. Yet the doctors say I am not
physically ill, and I know that I am not mad. Whence does this awful
misery, this unmeaning, causeless horror of life and of myself come? Why
am I thus afflicted?

"Of course I could find no answer to all these old questions, which I
had asked many times before. But this time, Bernard, my depression was
more lasting, more overwhelming than usual. I grew terribly afraid of
it. I thought I might be driven to suicide. One day a crisis seemed to
come. I dared no longer remain alone, so I put on my hat and coat, took
my stick, and hurried out, without any definite intention. I walked
along Piccadilly, avoiding the glances of those whom I met. I fancied
they could all read the agony, the degradation of my soul. I turned into
Bond Street, and suddenly I felt a strong inclination to stop before a
certain door. I obeyed the impulse, and my eyes fell on a brass plate,
upon which w