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for which he despaired to find a remedy--a mere nervous affection, he
immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed
itself in a host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed
them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms, and
the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much
from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone
endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors
of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint
light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed
instruments, which did not inspire him with horror.
To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave. "I shall
perish," said he, "I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus,
and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future,
not in themselves, but in their results. I shudder at the thought
of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may operate upon this
intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger,
except in its absolute effect--in terror. In this unnerved--in this
pitiable condition--I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive
when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the
grim phantasm, FEAR."
I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken and equivocal
hints, another singular feature of his mental condition. He was
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