About this time I took my room and wished to be alone, and yet I wanted my wife near me all the time, and wanted to talk to her constantly upon the same subject. I knew it was a great annoyance to her, and yet it seemed to me that I could not help it. I knew that I was wearing her out by my course, yet I had no control over myself. It seemed to me that she could help me out of all my troubles, at least I acted so, and yet my judgment told me she could not. I groaned much; my appetite now entirely failed; I did not want to eat for days. Sleep entirely left me, and a night seemed an eternity. I prevailed on my wife to take a separate room to prevent my wearing her out with my groanings. I felt now that I did not want to eat, sleep, or drink anything; my flesh seemed to dry down to my bones. It was at this stage of my condition that I felt that I was the worst being in the world. I shall never forget that I thought Jeff. Davis was a saint compared to me; yet I knew all that passed; my mind was as clear to reason as at this moment, but I viewed everything in a most extravagant light. It was Sunday, about the first of August, that I lay on my bed; I think some of the family were gone to church; I was in great trouble of mind; all that I ever did that was wrong seemed to rush upon my mind, and though I did not have the consolations of religion to comfort me, as I had been accustomed to, yet I wanted to do all things right, and leave nothing undone that I ought to do. I felt that it was probable that I should not live long, and I wanted to die. At that moment, I thought of some nitrate of silver and corrosive sublimate that I had been using for certain purposes, that I had set away rather carelessly, without labeling. Fearing that some of the family might get hold of them, mistaking them for medicine, I sprung from the bed, took the bottle of nitrate of silver, ran out door with it, made a hole in the ground, and meant to empty the contents of the bottle into this hole; but all at once I thought that some animal might get it and be killed by it. I hesitated, ran back with the bottle, then resolved again to bury it. The day was very hot, and I was running about with this bottle in my hand, undecided what to do with it. At that moment my family came in; wanted to know what I had. I told them; they did not believe me, of course, for I had never told them what was in this bottle they snatched it from my hand, and threw it somewhere, I could not see where. I thought I had as much trouble before as I could bear, but this seemed worse than all the rest put together; I imagined that some animal or human being would get hold of that nitrate of silver and be killed, and I should be charged with their death.