167.
  Once I looked in at the Bleecker Street basement of an
evening, and as usual found Sol and W. W. hippish,
blase, lazy and recriminating.    I have had, and written a
letter, from and to Alf.                      Sometimes a horror of my
room seized me, � sometimes I fled to it as to a refuge.
And always the dread grew more and more.   Most of all I
feared the afternoon part of the day, � and that if I went
mad, I should see my mother no more.    Of home, of Chacombe,
of my past life, of a thousand things, my mind ranged incessan-
tly.  I felt complete Despair, not one faint gleam of hope ir-
radiating the black slough of Despondency in which my soul was
drenched.        And one afternoon, (a bitter cold, though sunny
one �twas,)  the dread of coming Insanity so overpowered me,
that I rushed across the Park to the Picayune Office, with
the intent to tell Haney of my state.     By the way I met
Banks, (whom I�d not seen for some time,) and rather
startled him by my look.      In the Office were Levison, Ha-
ney and Bellew, (�the latter of whom I had heard of being
in New York before.)    I requested Haney to call at my room
on his returning up-townwards, and he complying, told him 
all.          He was very kind.  I went up town with him, supped
at the boarding house, sat awhile in the Basement (where Sol
was blaspheming Levison, � his every second sentence being a request
�to go to H��l;�) � and then to Parton�s boarding house, to
see Colonel Forbes, he having visited me, in the morning about ma-
king some sketches for him.           From thence we went to the Ed-
wardses, in Broadway, and parted at 11.          Haney wished