human
Farrar, what's the _matter_ with you lately?
gpt
Why...why... the brusqueness of the other's manner shocked him suddenly into confession.
human
I've lost my nerve, Professor Mallory, that's what the matter with me. I'm frightened to death,
gpt
What _of_?
human
Of myself...no, not myself, but my body! I'm not well...I'm getting worse all the time. The doctors don't make out what is the matter...I don't sleep ... I worry...I forget things, I take no interest in life...the doctors intimate a nervous breakdown ahead of me...and yet I rest ... I rest...more than I can afford to! I never go out. Every evening I'm in bed by nine o'clock. I take no part in college life beyond my work, for fear of the nervous strain. I've refused to take charge of that summer-school in New York, you know, that would be such an opportunity for me ... if I could only sleep! But though I never do anything exciting in the evening ... heavens! what nights I have. Black hours of seeing myself in a sanitarium, dependent on my brother! I never ... why, I'm in hell ... that's what the matter with me, a perfect hell of ignoble terror!