_[Menton, December, 1873], Sunday._
The first violet. There is more sweet trouble for the heart in the
breath of this small flower than in all the wines of all the vineyards
of Europe. I cannot contain myself. I do not think so small a thing has
ever given me such a princely festival of pleasure. I feel as if my
heart were a little bunch of violets in my bosom; and my brain is
pleasantly intoxicated with the wonderful odour. I suppose I am writing
nonsense, but it does not seem nonsense to me. Is it not a wonderful
odour? is it not something incredibly subtle and perishable? It is like
a wind blowing to one out of fairyland. No one need tell me that the
phrase is exaggerated if I say that this violet _sings_; it sings with
the same voice as the March blackbird; and the same adorable tremor goes
through one's soul at the hearing of it.
_Monday._--All yesterday I was under the influence of opium. I had been
rather seedy during the night and took a dose in the morning, and for
the first time in my life it took effect upon me. I had a day of
extraordinary happiness; and when I went to bed there was something
almost terrifying in the pleasures that besieged me in the darkness.
Wonderful tremors filled me; my head swam in the most delirious but
enjoyable manner; and the bed softly oscillated with me, like a boat in
a very gentle ripple. It does not make me write a good style apparently,
which is just as well, lest I should be tempted to renew the experiment;
and some verses which I wrote turn out on inspection to be not quite
equal to _Kubla Khan_. However, I was happy, and the recollection is not
troubled by any reaction this morning.
_Wednesday._--Do you know, I think I am much better. I really enjoy
things, and I really feel dull occasionally, neither of which was
possible with me before; and though I am still tired and weak, I almost
think I feel a stirring among the dry bones. O, I should like to
recover, and be once more well and happy and fit for work! And then to
be able to begin really to my life; to have done, for the rest of time,
with preluding and doubting; and to take hold of the pillars strongly
with Samson--to burn my ships with (whoever did it). O, I begin to feel
my spirits come back to me again at the thought!
_Thursday._--I sat along the beach this morning under some reeds (or
canes--I know not which they are): everything was so tropical; nothing
visible but the glaring white shingle, the blue sea, the blue sky, and
the green plumes of the canes thrown out against the latter some ten or
fifteen feet above my head. The noise of the surf alone broke the quiet.
I had somehow got _Ueber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh_ into my head; and I was
happy for I do not know how long, sitting there and repeating to myself
these lines. It is wonderful how things somehow fall into a full
satisfying harmony, and out of the fewest elements there is established
a sort of small perfection. It was so this morning. I did not want
anything further.