ead-heavy, exhausted sleep proved kind
to me....

* * * * *

Again: my imagination grew to be all graveyards, sepulchral urns,
skeletons. How beautiful it would be to die young and a poet, to die
like the young English poet, Henry Kirke White, whose works I was so
enamoured of. The wan consumptive glamour of his career led me, as he
had done, to stay up all night, night after night, studying....

* * * * *

After the surging and mounting of that in me which I could not resist,
several hours of strange, abnormal calm would ensue and for that space I
would swing calm and detached from myself, like a luminous, disembodied
entity. And then it was that I would write and write. The verses would
come rushing from my pen. I must hurry with them before my early death
overtook me.

* * * * *

There were two visions I saw continually in my sleep:

One was of myself walking with a proud step down a vast hall, the usual
wreath of fame on my head. I wore a sort of toga. And of course a great
concourse of people stood apart in silent reverence on either side,
gazing at me admiringly. With the thunder of their hand-clapping I would
wake.

The other dream was of being buried alive.

I lay there, smelling the dark earth, and not being able to stir so much
as the last joint of my little finger. Yet every nerve of me ached with
sentience.. and I woke gasping, my face bathed with tears and the
moisture of terror.

* * * * *

From head to foot hot flushes swept over me. And I was stung with the
pricking of a million needles, going in sharply at every pore!... was
bathed in cold sweats. And I hoped I was dying.

* * * * *

"Johnnie, what are you doing to yourself?" And my father fixed his eyes
on me.

"Nothing, Father!"

"If you weren't such a good boy, I'd--" and he halted, to continue,
"as it is, you're a clean boy, and I'm proud of you."

I struggled hard to speak with him, to make a confidant of him, but I
could not.

"I wonder," he added with alarm in his voice, "I wonder if you're
catching consumption, the disease your mother died of ... you must be
careful of yourself."

I told him I would be careful....

"I think I'll send you back home to visit the folks this fall."

* * * * *

There was a restaurant just around the corner