31H.P. Blavatsky & Annie Besant, editors - Lucifer Vol. VI, No. 31 March, 1890

till the perspiration runs down bis face. Another thinks himself the King of the Cannibal Islands, and struts about chattering unearthly gibberish. Another thinks he has committed all sorts of crimes, and is convinced that he has poisoned his father. Another thinks himself a tea-pot. And so on, everyone laughing heartily at the delusions of his fellows, and none of them dreaming that he himself is also mad. I cannot help feeling glad, after all, that I am not a man, to be liable to fall into such a hideous state of insanity. Better be a mere piece of glass than such a despicable object as is everyone of these unhappy beings.

Dec. 27 ( Sunday.) I have written nothing for some days, for a strange melan­ choly has settled down on me. The incessant and pitiful insanity of the human beings who surround me, coupled with the monotony of day after day without any fresh occurrence to change the round of events, has had a most depressing influence upon me. Until to-day nothing has happened to record, nothing has changed.

But to-day, although I am still safe here in my welcome hiding-place, a terrible calamity has occurred which gives my thoughts no peace. The snow is on the ground, and this morning some boys who were playing snowball in the street threw one which hit the window of the room in which I now am and broke a pane ! Oh, horror! I know only too well what it will be. The glazier will come to-morrow and I shall be puttied in, exposed to the view of every passer-by, and there I shall have to be for years and years—laughed at by all the world. Oh, if I could have remained here, hidden and secluded, I would have been content; but to have my unhappy self held up to the public gaze is more than I can endure. What shall I do ? How can I escape ? And I thought I was safe ! Oh dear, oh dear !

Dec. 28. The glazier has not come. They have mended the hole in the window with brown paper. Oh delicious relief! I am safe.

Dec. 29. The brown paper is still there. Heaven be praised !

Dec. 30. Dr. Bodkin came in and spoke to me for a few minutes. I made sure he was going to measure me to see if I should do for the broken window. He did not, but oh, he has given me my deathblow ! He saw the brown paper, and gave orders to have it removed, and the window-pane mended. Oh, horror of horrors !

What shall I do ? Where can I hide ? I know I shall be stuck up there to-morrow in full view of the street. Shall I break myself ? Alas, I dare not. I am afraid.

Dec. 31. My anxiety to-day has been almost too great to bear. But the glazier has not come. I hear he is coming to-morrow. Oh, what a new year it will be !

Well, I have made up my mind; I will not, I cannot undergo it. Before the bell has struck the hour of twelve I will steal gently to the window of the upper room and unobserved I will plunge into the street, and then I shall break into a thousand pieces, and my anxieties and troubles will be over.

Oh, heavens, the hour of midnight has come ! I hear the clock. I will fling down my pen. O God ! it will soon be over. At any rate I shall be saved from shame.

I go. Farewell, farewell.

C h a r l e s E Benham .