veral days I never left my bed, and scarcely took any food. My
mind felt, at times, quite confused; at other times, strange ideas shot
transitorily through it, with the vividness of lightning; but they were
only coruscations, and left no impressions. I forgot them as quickly as
they arose, and sank again into gloom. My malady began gradually to
assume a new turn. Phantoms began to visit me; the sages of antiquity
were my guests. I hailed them, at first, with pleasure, and enjoyed
their presence, but soon grew weary of the voiceless, fleeting
communion. In vain I spoke to them, or put questions in the most
impassioned tones. No sound ever met my ear save my own. Yet there was a
strange community of sentiment--an intercourse of soul between us; for
they would shoot their ideas in through my eyes--smile, or look
grave--and nod, assent, or shake the head, as various thoughts passed
through my mind. After the first visits, I ceased to use articulated
language; it was a joyless communion, a languid inanity, and I felt as
if my own soul was no longer a dweller in its earthly tabernacle, but
held a mysterious middle state between life and death. In vain I
endeavoured to exert my energies. I left my bed, and began to move
about; still this new torment clung to me. I possessed a strange power.
I had only to think of any event in history, and the whole was present
before me, even the scenes around becoming changed to the places where
the circumstances happened. I wished my memory annihilated; I strove not
to think. My very endeavours called up more vividly new and strange
ideas; wherever I was, the place seemed peopled by phantoms. Wherever I
turned my eyes, a moving pageant of gorgeous or hideous figures,
strangely real, were before me.

Oh, how I loathed my situation! Yet I complained to no one--not even to
my parents; enduring all in secret, and hearing the bitter taunts of
friends and acquaintances, who passed their heart-cutting remarks upon
my indolence, and strange way of passing my time. To the eye of a casual
observer, I was in good health, and shrunk from making known my painful
and unheard-of state, lest I should be considered insane, and treated as
such, by being placed in confinement--an idea that made me shudder. I
often doubted my own sanity; yet I felt not like ordinary madmen. I had
a consciousness that I was under some strong delusion, and what I saw
could not be real; still, my visions were not the less annoying