204 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



out undergoing anxieties unutterable ; even I, who 

 had preferved my foul in tranquillity, amidft a 

 temped off the Cape of Good-Hope, on board a 

 veflel flruck with lightning. If I happened to pafs 

 fimply through a public garden, by the fide of a 

 bafon full of water, I underwent fpafmodic affec- 

 tions of extreme horror. There were particular 

 moments, in which I imagined myfelf bitten, 

 without knowing how, or when, by a mad dog. 

 Much worfe than this had adually befallen me j I 

 had been bitten by the tooth of calumny. 



One thing is abfolutely certain, theparoxyfms of 

 this malady overtook me only when in the fociety of 

 men. I found it intolerable to continue in an apart- 

 ment where there was company, efpecially if the 

 doors were (hut. 1 could not even crofs an alley in 

 a public garden, if feveral perfons had got together 

 in it. 1 derived no relief from the circumftance 

 of their being unknown to me j 1 recolledled, that 

 I had been calumniated by my own friends, and 

 for the mod honourable adions of my life. When 

 I was alone, my malady fubfided : I felt myfelf 

 likewife at my eafe in places where 1 faw children 

 only. I frequently went, for this purpofe, and 

 feated myfelf by the box of the horfe-lhoe, in the 

 Tuileries, to look at the children playing on the 

 graffy parterre, with the little dogs which friiked 

 about them. Thefe were my fpedacles, and my 



tournaments. 



