Evenings.

MY soul is overcast at evening with that perception of ill, that willingness to identify suffering, to dwell on loneliness and the isolation of the self. Not when he is singing in a crowd, not when he dines with his family, not when he is married, in bed, or abroad, does the solipsist seem anything except alone. An isolated world is the subject that sees all external reality as through a glass darkly, altered in a haze of perception, lit dimly with a lantern called thought; and though I try to wear the coat of faith, and warm my chilled soul with its reassurances, it is not always sufficient to me. Perhaps I am not sufficient to it. How I wish it could be to me as it was to Henry Francis Lyte as he penned the verses to 'Abide with Me' on his deathbed. Sometimes it is as though nothing may break through but the sense of distress prevails.