A martyr to insomnia, I lost all elasticity of brain, all concentration, all taste for my best loved studies, and I wandered aimlessly about the Paris streets and through the country round.[3] By dint of overtiring my body, I managed, during this wretched time, to get four spells of death-like sleep or torpor, and four only; one night in a field near Ville-Juif, one day near Sceaux; a third in the snow by the frozen Seine near Neuilly, and the last on a table in the Café Cardinal, where I slept five hours, to the great fright of the waiters, who dared not touch me lest I should be dead. Returning one day from this dreary wandering in search of my lost soul, I noticed Moore’s _Irish Melodies_ open on the table at “When he who adores thee,” and, catching up a pen, I wrote the music to that heart-rending farewell straight off. It is the _Elégie_ at the end of my set of songs called _Ireland_. This is the only time I can remember being able to depict a sentiment while actively under its influence, and seldom have I gone so direct to the heart of it. It is a most difficult song both to sing and to accompany. To do it justice the singer must create his own atmosphere, so must the pianist and only the most sensitive and artistic souls should attempt it. For this reason, during all the twenty odd years since it was written, I have never asked anyone to try it; but one day Alizard picked it up and began trying it without the piano. Even that upset me so terribly that I had to beg him to stop. He understood. I know he would have interpreted it perfectly, and it was more than I could bear. I did begin to set it to an orchestral accompaniment, but I thought: “No, this is not for the general public. I could not stand their calm indifference,” and I burnt the score. Yet some day it may chance, in England or Germany, to find a niche in some wounded breast, some quivering soul--in France and Italy it is a hopeless alien. Coming away from _Hamlet_, I vowed that never more would I expose myself to Shakespearian temptation, never more singe my scorched wings in his flame. Next morning _Romeo and Juliet_ was placarded. In terror lest the free list of the Odéon should be suspended by the new management, I tore round to the box-office and bought a stall. I was done for! Ah! what a change from the dull grey skies and icy winds of Denmark to the burning sun, the perfumed nights of Italy! From the melancholy, the cruel irony, the tears, the mourning, the lowering destiny of Hamlet, what a transition to the impetuous youthful love, the long-drawn kisses, the vengeance, the despairing fatal conflict of love and death in those hapless lovers! By the third act, half suffocated by my emotion, with the grip of an iron hand upon my heart, I cried to myself: “I am lost--am lost!”