Read this excerpt from extremely loud and incredibly close. even after a year, i still had an extremely difficult time doing certain things, like taking showers, for some reason, and getting into elevators, obviously. there was a lot of stuff that made me panicky, like suspension bridges, germs, airplanes, fireworks…a lot of the time i'd get that feeling like i was in the middle of a huge black ocean, or in deep space, but not in the fascinating way. it's just that everything was incredibly far away from me. it was worst at night. i started inventing things, and then i couldn't stop, like beavers, which i know about. people think they cut down trees so they can build dams, but in reality it's because their teeth never stop which word from this excerpt most reveals the tone?

“dear sir: it is with great reluctance, i trouble you on a subject, which does not fall within your province; but it is a subject that occasions me more distress, than i have felt, since the commencement of the war; and which loudly demands the most zealous exertions of every person of weight and authority, who is interested in the success of our affairs. i mean the present dreadful situation of the army for want of provisions, and the miserable prospects before us, with respect to futurity. it is more alarming than you will probably conceive, for, to form a just idea, it were necessary to be on the spot. for some days past, there has been little less, than a famine in camp. a part of the army has been a week, without any kind of flesh, and the rest for three or four days. naked and starving as they are, we cannot enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiery, that they have not been ere this excited by their sufferings, to a general mutiny or dispersion. strong symptoms, however, discontent have appeared in particular instances; and nothing but the most acitive efforts every where can long avert so shocking a catastrophe.” what’s the central idea?