"If I had to live my life again I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellectual and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature... Formerly I was led to the firm conviction of God and of the immortality of the soul... In my journal I wrote that whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of the Brazilian forest, 'It is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.' ... But now the grandest scene would not cause any such conviction and feelings to rise in my mind... Disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress."