text:  I have outlived all whom I ever cared for; I have seen those whom I idolized lie before me cold and senseless; and now with every event vividly impressed upon my memory each tone of the voice of her I loved dropping like liquid fire into my brain and drying up the tears that would weep away my anguish--feeling all this with intensity and longing for the free air of heaven I find myself alone--desolate--and HERE!! Oh! the horror of this prison-solitude--the anxious watching for the pale morning after sleepless nights--the horrible nights when fantastic shapes are alone visible mocking at and jeering me--when the only sounds I hear are the ravings of some wretched maniac confined like myself because we have made for ourselves a world and our imaginations have created a presiding divinity; and should a laugh disturb the silence it is the outbreak of a maddened spirit seeking relief from thought--a laugh frightful because a mockery--sad in its boisterousness--"_the laugh which laughs not_