3 04 NATURE STUDIES. 



though I might have found it difficult to determine 

 whether they indicated or were the cause of mental 

 mischief. As it was, other thoughts engrossed my 

 mind too much to allow of any anxiety on this account ; 

 and after a few days the chords ceased to trouble me ; 

 though to this day I am careful not to allow the mental 

 voice to utter these sounds to the mental ear, lest 

 again the chords should begin to be monotonously 

 repeated. It is probable that this particular mental 

 trouble ceased as it began, apart from any act on 

 my own part; still it may be worth mentioning 

 that I obtained relief, and was, at the time, under 

 the impression that I had driven away the haunting 

 chords, by adding mentally, after each set of six 

 chords, a series of others, as follows l : 



-morcndo. 



-T = I ^ L J 1 1 1 T 



*3&=2 



I noticed that the interval before the paired chords 

 began to be mentally heard again, gradually increased, 

 after the above plan had been followed, until the 

 intervals of silence became so long that the mind 



1 It is probably not necessary for me to explain to musicians 

 that I know nothing whatever of harmony. Perhaps the above 

 arrangements of chords is full of mistakes, so far as the laws of 

 harmony are concerned, but it represents exactly, first, the chords 

 w^ich troubled me, and secondly, those which I added to put the 

 former out of my head. 



