repose, I felt the pressure of my will exhausting the sources at the very depths of my being.  It seemed to me that I dug out my ideas from the bottom of a mine, instead of gathering them upon the surface of the brain.  The more material organs came to the rescue of their failing chief.  The blood from my heart rushed to my head to revive it; the muscles of my limbs communicated to the fibres of the brain their galvanic tension.  Nerves turned into imagination, flesh into life.  Nothing has developed my materialistic beliefs like this decarnation of which I had such a sensible, or rather visible perception.

“I destroyed my health with these psychological experiments, and the abuse of work perhaps shortened my life.  When I was thirty years old my face was wrinkled, my cheeks were pallid, and my heart blighted and empty.  For what result, grand Dieu!  For a fleeting and fruitless renown!

“The failure of my two plays warned me that others judged me as I judged myself.  I recalled to mind the Archbishop of Granada, and I thought I could hear Gil Blas predicting the failure of my works.  We can not dismiss the public as we can our secretary; meanwhile, I surrendered to a too severe justice in order to decline others’ opinions.  A horrible thought suddenly came into my mind; my artistic life was ended, I was a worn-out man; in one word, to picture my situation in a trivial but correct manner, I had reached the end of my rope.

“I could not express to you the discouragement that I felt at this conviction.  Melanie’s infidelity was the crowning touch.  It was not my heart, but my vanity which had been rendered more irritable by recent disappointments.  This, then, was the end of all my ambitious dreams!  I had not enough mind left, at thirty years of age, to write a vaudeville or to be loved by a grisette!

“One day Doctor Labanchie came to see me.

“‘What are you doing there’ said he, as he saw me seated at my desk.

“‘Doctor,’ said I, reaching out my hand to him, ’I believe that I am a little feverish.’

“‘Your pulse is a little rapid,’ said he, after making careful examination, ‘but your fever is more of imagination than of blood.’

“I explained to him my condition, which was now becoming almost unendurable.  Without believing in medicine very much, I had confidence in him and knew him to be a man who would give good advice.

“‘You work too much,’ said he, shaking his head.  ’Your brain is put to too strong a tension.  This is a warning nature gives you, and you will make a mistake if you do not follow it.  When you are sleepy, go to bed; when you are tired, you must have rest.  It is rest for your brain that you now need.  Go into the country, confine yourself to a regular and healthy diet:  vegetables, white meat, milk in the morning, a very little wine, but, above all things, no coffee.  Take moderate exercise, hunt—­and avoid all irritating thoughts; read the ‘Musee des familles’ or the ‘Magasin Pittoresque’.  This regime will have the effect of a soothing poultice upon your brain, and before the end of six months you will be in your normal condition again.’