CHAPTER I.

AN ARTIST'S STUDIO.


In the winter of 188--, I was afflicted by a series of nervous
ailments, brought on by overwork and overworry. Chief among these
was a protracted and terrible insomnia, accompanied by the utmost
depression of spirits and anxiety of mind. I became filled with the
gloomiest anticipations of evil; and my system was strung up by slow
degrees to such a high tension of physical and mental excitement,
that the quietest and most soothing of friendly voices had no other
effect upon me than to jar and irritate. Work was impossible; music,
my one passion, intolerable; books became wearisome to my sight; and
even a short walk in the open air brought with it such lassitude and
exhaustion, that I soon grew to dislike the very thought of moving
out of doors. In such a condition of health, medical aid became
necessary; and a skilful and amiable physician, Dr. R----, of great
repute in nervous ailments, attended me for many weeks, with but
slight success. He was not to blame, poor man, for his failure to
effect a cure. He had only one way of treatment, and he applied it
to all his patients with more or less happy results. Some died, some
recovered; it was a lottery on which my medical friend staked his
reputation, and won. The patients who died were never heard of more--
those who recovered sang the praises of their physician everywhere,
and sent him gifts of silver plate and hampers of wine, to testify