I am controlled. Formerly I could act from intention, but now I have
no future to design, nothing in prospect, and _my present action is
from a present cause, not from any past._ Hence it is that while my
action may appear to others as designed, to me it is unlooked-for and
unaccountable. I do not expect that others can feel this as I do. I
am tossed about in a sea without a rudder. What drives me onward, and
where I shall be driven, is to me unknown. My past life seems to me
like that of another person, and my present is like a dream. Where am
I? I know not. I have no power over my present, I do not even know
what it is. Whom can I find like myself, whom can I speak to that
will understand me?

"This makes me still, lonely; and I cannot wish myself out of this
state. I have no will to do that--not that I have any desire to. All
I can say is that I am in it. What would be the effect of necessity
on me, I know not, whether it would lead me back or lead me on. My
feeling of duty towards you is a continual weight upon me which I
cannot throw off--it is best, perhaps, that I cannot. All appears to
me as a seeming, not a reality. Nothing touches that life in me which
is seeking that which I know not."

TO GEORGE HECKER.--"Brook Farm, March 6, 1843.--What was the reason
of my going, or what made me go? The reason I am not able to tell.
But what I felt was a dark, irresistible influence upon me that led
me away from home. What it was I know not. What keeps me here I
cannot tell. It is only when I struggle against it that a spell comes
over me. If I give up to it, nothing is the matter with me. But when
I look to my past, my duty toward you all, and consider what this may
lead me to, and then attempt to return, I get into a state which I
cannot speak of . . .