recollections of the miserable sights I had seen, the poverty, the
helplessness. I tried to work myself into indignation; but all through
these efforts I felt the contagion growing upon me, my mind falling into
sympathy with all those straining faculties of the body, startled,
excited, driven wild by something, I knew not what. It was not fear. I
was like a ship at sea straining and plunging against wind and tide, but
I was not afraid. I am obliged to use these metaphors, otherwise I could
give no explanation of my condition, seized upon against my will, and
torn from all those moorings of reason to which I clung with desperation,
as long as I had the strength.

When I got up from my chair at last, the battle was lost, so far as my
powers of self-control were concerned. I got up, or rather was dragged
up, from my seat, clutching at these material things round me as with a
last effort to hold my own. But that was no longer possible; I was
overcome. I stood for a moment looking round me feebly, feeling myself
begin to babble with stammering lips, which was the alternative of
shrieking, and which I seemed to choose as a lesser evil. What I said
was, "What am I to do?" and after a while, "What do you want me to do?"
although throughout I saw no one, heard no voice, and had in reality not
power enough in my dizzy and confused brain to know what I myself meant.
I stood thus for a moment, looking blankly round me for guidance,
repeating the question, which seemed after a time to become almost
mechanical, "What do you want me to do?" though I neither knew to whom I
addressed it nor why I said it. Presently--whether in answer, whether in
mere yielding of nature, I cannot tell--I became aware of a difference:
not a lessening of the agitation, but a softening, as if my powers of
resistance being exhausted, a gentler force, a more benignant influence,
had room. I felt myself consent to whatever it was. My heart melted in
the midst of the tumult; I seemed to give myself up, and move as if drawn