For this purpose, I address myself to the problem of giving, as just indicated, natural and scientific explanation for all the mysterious phenomena which appear to us. I split up my personality and show to the world a rationalistic occultist, but I keep my innermost individuality unimpaired and cherish the germ of a creedless religion. Often my outer rôle gets the upper hand; my two natures become so intricately intermixed that I can laugh at my newly won belief. This helps my theories to find entrance into the most oppositely constituted minds. The gloomy December days drag on lazily under a dark-grey smoky sky. Although I have discovered Swedenborg's explanation regarding the character of my sufferings, I cannot bring myself once for all to bend under the hand of the Powers. My disposition to make objections asserts itself, and I continually refer the real causes of my suffering to external things, especially the malice of men. Attacked day and night by "electric streams," which compress my chest and stab my heart, I quit my torture-chamber, and visit the tavern where I find friends. Fearing sobriety, I drink ceaselessly, as the only way of procuring sleep at night. Shame and disgust, however, combined with restlessness, compel me to give this up, and for some evenings I visit the Temperance Café called the "Blue Band." But the company one meets with there depresses me,--bluish, pale, and emaciated faces, terrible and malicious eyes, and a silence which is not the peace of God. When things go wrong, wine is a benefit, and refraining from it a punishment. I return to the half-sober tavern, without, however, transgressing the bounds of moderation, after having disciplined myself for several evenings by drinking tea. Christmas is approaching, and I regard the children's festival with a cool bitterness that I can hardly dignify with the name of resignation. For six years I have had all kinds of sufferings, and am now prepared for anything. Loneliness in an hotel! That has long been my nightmare, and I have become accustomed to it. It seems as though the very thing that I dislike is forced upon me. Meanwhile a closer intimacy has sprung up between me and a friendly circle, so that they begin to make confidences to me. The fact is that during the last months so many things have happened, so many unusual unexpected things. "Let me hear them," I say. "They tell me that the head of the revolutionary students, the freest of freethinkers, after having come out of a temperance hospital and taking the pledge, has been now converted, so that he forthwith----" "Well, what?" "Sings penitential psalms." "Incredible!"