traits, and by conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical
conformation and temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and
sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the
animal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic
concision--that abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding
enunciation--that leaden, self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural
utterance, which may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the
irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of his most intense
excitement.

It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his earnest
desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to afford him. He
entered, at some length, into what he conceived to be the nature of his
malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a family evil, and one for
which he despaired to find a remedy--a mere nervous affection, he
immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon pass on. 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 odours 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