t despair; yet, aside
from the momentary initial shock, my contentment was in no degree
diminished. I can say with truth that I was as complacent the very
moment I recrossed the threshold of that "retreat" as I had been when
crossing and recrossing at will the threshold of my club.

Of everything I thought and did during the interesting weeks which
followed, I have a complete record. The moment I accepted the
inevitable, I determined to spend my time to good advantage. Knowing
from experience that I must observe my own case, if I was to have any
detailed record of it, I provided myself in advance with notebooks. In
these I recorded, I might almost say, my every thought and action. The
sane part of me, which fortunately was dominant, subjected its
temporarily unruly part to a sort of scientific scrutiny and
surveillance. From morning till night I dogged the steps of my restless
body and my more restless imagination. I observed the physical and
mental symptoms which I knew were characteristic of elation. An
exquisite light-heartedness, an exalted sense of wellbeing, my pulse,
my weight, my appetite--all these I observed and recorded with a care
that would have put to the blush a majority of the doctors in charge of
mental cases in institutions.

But this record of symptoms, though minute, was vague compared to my
reckless analysis of my emotions. With a lack of reserve characteristic
of my mood, I described the joy of living, which, for the most part,
then consisted in the joy of writing. And even now, when I reread my
record, I feel that I cannot overstate the pleasure I found in
surrendering myself completely to that controlling impulse. The
excellence of my composition seemed to me beyond criticism. And, as to
one in a state of elation, things are pretty much as they seem, I was
able to experience the subtle delights which, I fancy, thrill the soul
of a master. During this month of elation I wrote words enough to fill
a book nearly as large as this one. Having found that each filling of
my fountain pen was sufficient for the writing of about twenty-eight
hundred words, I kept a record of the number of times I filled it. This
minute calculation I carried to an extreme. If I wrote for fifty-nine
minutes, and then read for seventeen, those facts I recorded. Thus, in
my diary and out of it, I wrote and wrote until the tips of my thumb
and forefinger grew numb. As this numbness increased and general
weariness of the hand