I cannot sleep tonight!
     My watch tells the hour as one!  What am I to do with the time between now and daylight?  I cannot reason myself to sleep -- have tried it and given up the task.
     Am in one of my wrong moods tonight.  "Dark thoughts of darker things" fill my heart and brain!  The utter nothingness of Life - yet so crowded with vain hopings and helpless misery!
     I feel rebellious tonight!  Bitter questioning as to the why of all of this crowds from my brain worthier thoughts.
     I know this dissatisfaction is very unwise, if not very weak! -- But "grave Reason" cannot always "have her sway!"
     I fight ennui as I would, or should, the devil!  -- But, there is a thought worse to battle than ennui -- this incubus of Life -- blindness, spirit-blindless, is more than I can bear, or brave sometimes!
     Am I really but a plaything of Destiny?  Or do I walk unfettered?  And if unfettered, why has Nature done her work so poorly?  Why lay the burden of a double curse upon her human children?  -- Denying them even the Self-protecting instinct of the brute, yet giving a metal capacity for infinite and intense suffering?
     Yet all of this - these thoughts - these questions - how unwise if not unworthy!
     How much better, if not wiser, the humble, unreasoning faith, that tells us this is God, and tells no more!  A Divine Wisdom, that "out of very faithfulness causes us to be troubled".
     I know all of this! -- I know what is reason, and what is madness!  But what are we to do with the great want and asking of the heart?  That restless power which cannot reason?
     Hear the wild pleading, Mon Dieu, --- the hungry cries sent up from the unfathomed depths of its passionate unrest! ----- And will the want never be answered?  -- Or, is there no angel of Peace to calm the troubled waters?  Will the thirsty lips ne'er drink at the fountain of some sweet Rest, where the restless feet will cease from wandering, and the fevered brain grow cool and calm in its bosomed shade!
     Dreams! Dreams! That ever haunt me, as the weary traveler of the desert is haunted by the memory of sheltered springs and mossy brooks! --- How weak I am to "pour out these wild words"!  I'll "no more of them!  Silence shall reign, if not sleep!