The Journal of a Disappointed Man

February 3. For days past have been living in a state of mental ebullition. All kinds of pictures of Love, Life, and Death have been passing through my mind. Now I am too indolent and nerveless to set them down. Physically I am such a wreck that to carry out the least intention, such as putting on my boots, I have to flog my will like an Arab with a slave "in a sand of Ayaman." Three months ago when I got up before breakfast to dissect rabbits, dogfish, frogs, newts, etc., this would have seemed impossible. February 6. Still visit Dr. ----'s surgery each week. I have two dull spots at the bottom of each lung. What a fine expressive word is gloom. Let me write it: GLOOM.... One evening coming home in the train from L---- County Sessions I noticed a horrible, wheezy sound whenever I breathed deep. I was scared out of my life, and at once thought of consumption. Went to the Doctor's next day, and he sounded me and reassured me. I was afraid to tell him of the little wheezy sound at the apex of each lung, and I believed he overlooked it. So next day, very harassed, I went back to him again and told him. He hadn't noticed it and looked glum. Have to keep out of doors as much as possible. The intense internal life I lead, worrying about my health, reading (eternally reading), reflecting, observing, feeling, loving and hating--with no outlet for superfluous steam, cramped and confined on every side, without any friends or influence of any sort, without even any acquaintances excepting my colleagues in journalism (whom I contemn)--all this will turn me into the most self-conscious, conceited, mawkish, gauche creature in existence.