Chapter 3

“I would not if I could be blest,I want no other paradise but rest.”

“I would not if I could be blest,

I want no other paradise but rest.”

The most painfully interesting and melancholy cases of insanity are those in which remorse has taken possession of the mind. Simon Brown, the dissenting clergyman, fancied that he had been deprived by the Almighty of his immortal soul, in consequence of having accidentally taken away the life of a highwayman, although it was done in the act of resistance to his threatened violence, and in protection of his own person. Whilst kneeling upon the wretch whom he had succeeded in throwing upon the ground, he suddenly discovered that his prostrate enemy was deprived of life. This unexpected circumstance produced so violent an impression upon his nervous system, that he was overpowered by the idea of an involuntary homicide, and for this imaginary crime fancied himself ever afterwards condemned to one of the most dreadful punishments that could be inflicted upon a human being.

A young lady was one morning requested by her mother to stay at home; notwithstanding which, she was tempted to go out. Upon her return to her domestic roof, she found that the parent whom she had so recently disobliged had expired in her absence. The awful spectacle of a mother’s corpse, connected with the filial disobedience which had almost immediately preceded, shook her reason from its seat, and she has ever since continued in a state of mental derangement.

It is said that the solitary hours of Charles the Ninth of France were rendered horrible by the repetition of the shrieks and cries which had assailed his ears during the massacre of St. Bartholomew.21

The death of Cardinal Beaufort is represented as truly terrible. The consciousness of having murdered the Duke of Gloucester is said to have rendered Beaufort’s death one of the most terrific scenes ever witnessed. Despair, in its worst form, appeared to take possession of his mind at the last moment.His concluding words, as recorded by Harpsfield,22were—“And must I then die? Will not all my riches save me? I could purchase the kingdom, if that would save my life. What! is there no bribing of death? When my nephew, the Duke of Bedford, died, I thought my happiness and my authority greatly increased; but the Duke of Gloucester’s death raised me in fancy to a level with kings, and I thought of nothing but accumulating still greater wealth, to purchase at last the triple crown. Alas! how are my hopes disappointed! Wherefore, O my friends, let me earnestly beseech you to pray for me, and recommend my departing soul to God!” A few minutes before his death, his mind appeared to be undergoing the tortures of the damned. He held up his two hands, and cried—“Away! away!—why thus do ye look at me?” It was evident he saw some horrible spectre by his bed-side. This last scene in the Cardinal’s life has been most ably delineated by the immortal Shakspeare:—

M. Guillon relates the following remarkable case:—“The Chevalier de S—— had been engaged in seventeen ‘affairs of honour,’ in each of which his adversary fell. But the images of his murdered rivals began to haunt him night and day; and at length he fancied he heard nothing but the wailings and upbraidings of seventeen families—one demanding a father, another a son, another a brother, another a husband, &c. Harassed by these imaginary followers, he incarcerated himself in the monastery of La Trappe; but the French revolution threw open this asylum, and turned the chevalier once more into the world. He was now no longer able to bear the remorse of his own conscience, or, as he imagined, the sight of seventeen murdered men, and therefore put himself to death. It is evident that insanity was the consequence of the remorse, and the cause of the suicide.

“No disease of the imagination is so difficult to cure as that which is complicated with the idea of guilt: fancy and conscience then act interchangeably upon us, and so often shift their places, that the illusions of one are not distinguished fromthe dictates of the other. If fancy presents images not moral or religious, the mind drives them away when they give pain; but when melancholy notions take the form of duty, they lay hold on the faculties without opposition, because we are afraid to exclude or banish them.”25

How accurately has the poet depicted the tortures, the sleeplessness, of a guilty conscience:—

“Though thy slumber may be deep,Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;There are shades which will not vanish,There are thoughts thou canst not banish;By a power to thee unknown,Thou canst never be alone;Thou art wrapt as with a shroud,Thou art gathered in a cloud;And for ever shalt thou dwellIn the spirit of this spell.”

“Though thy slumber may be deep,

Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;

There are shades which will not vanish,

There are thoughts thou canst not banish;

By a power to thee unknown,

Thou canst never be alone;

Thou art wrapt as with a shroud,

Thou art gathered in a cloud;

And for ever shalt thou dwell

In the spirit of this spell.”

A woman with her husband had been employed in a French hospital as servants for a considerable time. Having left their situations, the wife,thirty yearsafterwards, declared she heard a voice within, commanding her to repair instantly to the chief commissioner of police, and confess the thefts she had committed during the time she was at the hospital. The fact was, that she had been guilty of appropriating occasionally to her own use a portion of the food supplied for the patients attached to the Institution. The commissioner listened to the woman’s story, and her demand that she should be punished, but refused to take any cognizance of the offence. She returned home, and for some time was extremely dejected. She became so miserable that existence was no longer desirable; and as the legal tribunals refused to punish her, she determined on suicide, which she committed at the age of fifty-one.

It is admitted, by almost universal consent, that there is no affection of the mind that exerts so tremendous an influence over the human race as that of love.

“To love, and feel ourselves beloved,”

is said to constitute the height of human happiness. This sacred sentiment, which some have debased by the term passion, when unrequited and irregulated, produces the most baneful influence upon the system.

“A youthful passion, which is conceived and cherished without any certain object, may be compared to a shell thrown from a mortar by night: it rises calmly in a brilliant track, and seems to mix, and even to dwell for a moment with the stars of heaven; but at length it falls—it bursts—consuming and destroying all around, even as itself expires.”26

From the constitution of woman, from the peculiar position which she of necessity holds in society, we should,à priori, have concluded that in her we should see manifested this sentiment in all its purity and strength. Such is the fact. A woman’s life is said to be but the history of her affections. It is the soul within her soul; the pulse within her heart; the life blood along her veins, “blending with every atom of her frame.” Separated from the bustle of active life—isolated like a sweet and rare exotic flower from the world, it is natural to expect that the mind should dwell with earnestness upon that which is to constitute almost its very being, and apart from which it has no existence.

“Alas! the love of woman, it is knownTo be a lovely and a fearful thing;For all of theirs upon that die is thrown;And if ’tis lost, life hath no more to bringTo them, but mockeries of the past alone.”Byron.

“Alas! the love of woman, it is known

To be a lovely and a fearful thing;

For all of theirs upon that die is thrown;

And if ’tis lost, life hath no more to bring

To them, but mockeries of the past alone.”

Byron.

The term “broken heart” is not a mere poetical image. Cases are recorded in which that organ has been ruptured in consequence of disappointed hope. Let those who are sceptical as to the fact that physical disease so often results from blighted affection, visit the wards of our public and privateasylums. In those dreary regions of misery they will have an opportunity of witnessing the wreck of many a form that was once beauteous and happy. Ask their history, and you will be told of holy and sincere affection nipped in the bud—of wild and passionate love strangled at its birth—of the death of all human hopes, of a severance from those about whom every fibre of the soul had entwined itself. Silent and sullen grief, black despair,

“And laughter loud, amidst severest woe,”

are the painful images that meet the eye at every step we take through these “hells upon earth.”27

In this country, the great majority of the cases of insanity among women, in our establishments devoted to the reception of the insane, can clearly be traced to unrequited and disappointed affection. This is not to be wondered at, if we consider the present artificial state of society. We make “merchandize of love;” both men and women are estimated, not by their mental endowments, not by their moral worth, not by their capacity of making the domestic fire-side happy, but by the length of their respective purses. Instead of seeking for a heart, we look for a dowry. Money is preferred to intellect; pure and unadulterated affection dwindles into nothingness when placed in the same scale with titles and worldly honours,

“And Mammon wins his wayWhere seraphs might despair.”

“And Mammon wins his way

Where seraphs might despair.”

How little do those who ought to be influenced by more elevated motives calculate the seeds of wretchedness and misery which they are sowing for those who, by nature, have a right to demand that they should be actuated by other principles!

“Shall I be wonBecause I’m valued as amoney-bag?For that I bring to him who winneth me,”28

“Shall I be won

Because I’m valued as amoney-bag?

For that I bring to him who winneth me,”28

says Catherine, in the spirit of honest indignation. It should be remembered that “wedlock joins nothing, if it joins not hearts.”

How many melancholy cases of suicide can clearly be traced to this cause! Death is considered preferable to a long life of unmitigated sorrow. When the heart is seared, when there exists no “green spot in memory’s dreary waste,”—when all hope is banished from the mind, and wretched loneliness and desolation take up their residence in the heart, need it excite surprise that the quiet and rest of the grave is eagerly longed for! If a mind thus worked upon be not influenced by religious principles, self-destruction is the idea constantly present to the imagination.

Of all the sufferings, however, to which we are exposed during our sojourn below, nothing is so truly overwhelming and irreparable as the death of one with whom all our early associations are inseparably linked—one endeared to us by the most pleasing recollections. Death leaves a blank in our existence; a cold shuddering shoots through the frame, a mist flits before our eyes, darkening the face of nature, when the heart that mingled all its feelings with ours lies, cold and insensible, in the silent grave.

As long as life lasts, there is hope; but death snatches every ray of consolation from the mind. The only prop that supported us is removed, and the mansion crumbles to the dust; the mind becomes utterly and hopelessly wrecked. To say that this is but the effect on understandings constitutionally weak, is to say what facts will not establish. The most elevated and best cultivated minds are often the most sensitively alive to such impressions.

The following case made considerable noise at Lyons, in1770. A young gentleman of rank, of handsome exterior, possessing considerable mental endowments, and most respectably connected, fell in love with a young lady, who, like himself, possessed a handsome person, in union with accomplishments of a high order. They met; the passion was reciprocal, and the gentleman accordingly made an application to her parents to be allowed to consummate their bliss by marriage. The parents, as parents sometimes do under these circumstances, refused compliance. The gentleman took it greatly to heart; it preyed much upon his mind, and in the midst of his grief he burst a blood-vessel. His case was given over by the medical men. The young lady, on being made acquainted with his condition, paid him a clandestine visit, and they then agreed to destroy themselves. Accordingly the lady brought with her, on her next visit, two pistols and two daggers, in order that, if the pistols missed, the daggers might the next moment pierce their hearts. They embraced each other for the last time. Rose-coloured ribbons were tied to the triggers of the pistols; the lover holding the ribbon of his mistress’ pistol, while she held the ribbon of his; both fired at a given signal, and both fell at the same instant dead on the floor!

The case now about to be recorded presents some peculiarly interesting features. An English lady, moving in the first circles of society, went, in company with her friends, to the opera at Paris. In the next box sat a gentleman, who appeared, from the notice he took of the lady, to be enamoured of her. The lady expressed herself annoyed at the observation which she had attracted, and moved to another part of the box. The gentleman followed the carriage home, and insisted upon addressing the lady, declaring that he had had the pleasure of meeting her elsewhere, and that one minute’s conversation would convince her of the fact, and do away with the unfavourable impression which his apparent rudeness might have made upon her mind. As his requestdid not appear at the moment unreasonable, she consented to see him for a minute by herself. In that short space of time he made a fervent declaration of his affection; acknowledged that desperation had compelled him to have recourse to aruseto obtain an interview, and that, unless she looked favourably on his pretensions, he would kill her and then himself. The lady expressed her indignation at the deceit he had practised, and said, with considerable firmness, that he must quit the house. He did so, retired to his home, and with a lancet opened a vein in his arm. He collected a portion of blood in a cup, and with it wrote a note to the lady, telling her that his blood was flowing fast from his body, and it should continue to flow until she consented to listen to his proposals. The lady, on the receipt of the note, sent her servant to see the gentleman, and found him, as he represented, actually bleeding to death. On the entreaty of the lady, the arm was bound up and his life saved. On writing to the lady, under the impression that she would now accept his addresses, he was amazed on receiving a cool refusal, and a request that he would not trouble her with any more letters. Again driven to desperation, he resolved effectually to kill himself. He accordingly loaded a pistol and directed his steps towards the residence of his fair amorosa, when, knocking at the door, he gained admission, and immediately blew out his brains. The intelligence was communicated to the lady, she became dreadfully excited, and a severe attack of nervous fever followed. When the acute symptoms subsided, her mind was completely deranged. Her insanity took a peculiar turn. She fancied she heard a voice commanding her to commit suicide, and yet she appeared to be possessed of sufficient reason to know that she was desirous of doing what she ought to be restrained from accomplishing. Every now and then she would exclaim, “Take away the pistol! I won’t hang myself! I won’t take poison!” Under the impression that she would kill herself, she was carefullywatched; but notwithstanding the vigilance which was exercised she had sufficient cunning to conceal a knife, with which, during the temporary absence of the attendant, she stabbed herself in the abdomen, and died in a few hours. It appears that the idea that she had caused the death of another, and that she had it in her power to save his life by complying with his wishes, produced the derangement of mind under which she was labouring at the time of her death; and yet she did not manifest, and it was evident to everybody that she had not, the slightest affection for the gentleman who professed so much to admire her. Possessing naturally a sensitive mind, it was easily excited. The peculiar circumstances connected with her mental derangement were sufficient to account for the delusions under which she laboured. Altogether the case is full of interest.

Few passions tend more to distract and unsettle the mind than that of jealousy. Insanity and suicide often owe their origin to this feeling. One of the most terrific pictures of the dire effects of this “green-eyed monster” on the mind is delineated in the character of Othello. In the Moor of Venice we witness a fearful struggle between fond and passionate love and this corroding mental emotion. Worked upon by the villainous artifices of Iago, Othello is led to doubt the constancy of Desdemona’s affection; the very doubt urges him almost to the brink of madness; but when he feels assured of her guilt, and sees the gulf into which he has been hurled, and the utter hopelessness of his condition, he abandons himself to despair. Nothing which the master spirit of Shakspeare ever penned can equal the exquisitely touching and melting pathos of the speech of the Moor when he becomes perfectly conscious of the wreck of one around whom every tendril of his heart had indissolubly interwoven itself. To be forcibly severed from one dearer to us than our own existence is a misfortune that requires much philosophy to bear up against; to be torn from a beloved object by death, to feel that theearth encloses in its cold embrace the idol of our affections, freezes the heart; but to be separated from one who has forfeited all claim to our affection and friendship, and who still lives, but lives in dishonour, must be a refinement of human misery. Need we then wonder that, when influenced by such feelings, Othello should thus give expression to the overflowings of his soul:—

“Oh now, for ever,Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,That make ambition virtue! Oh, farewell!Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,The spirit-stirring drum, th’ ear-piercing fife,The royal banner, and all quality,Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!And, oh, you mortal engines, whose rude throatsTh’ immortal Jove’s dread clamours counterfeit,Farewell! Othello’s occupation’s gone!”

“Oh now, for ever,

Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!

Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,

That make ambition virtue! Oh, farewell!

Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,

The spirit-stirring drum, th’ ear-piercing fife,

The royal banner, and all quality,

Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!

And, oh, you mortal engines, whose rude throats

Th’ immortal Jove’s dread clamours counterfeit,

Farewell! Othello’s occupation’s gone!”

It is under the infliction of such a concentration of misery that many a mind is shattered, and that death is courted as the only relief within its grasp. Othello, having discovered when it was too late that he had wrongly suspected Desdemona, and had sacrificed the life of the sweetest creature on earth, a combination of passions drives him to distraction, and under their influence he plunges the dagger into his heart. Jealousy was not, as some have supposed, the exclusive cause of Othello’s suicide.

The following singular case attracted considerable notice fifteen years ago. A woman was subjected to much maltreatment by her husband. She was jealous of his attentions to one of the servants, and she had frequently declared, that if he persisted in insulting her under her own roof she would either cause his or her own death. On one occasion she was more than usually violent, and expressed her determination to ruin him. Fearful that she would carry her threat into execution, he had her placed in a room where there was no furniture, and nothing that she could use for the purpose of self-destruction. Her rage was greatly increased by this barbarous treatment, and her screams were sufficiently loud to alarm the whole neighbourhood. As her husband refused to release her from confinement, she determined no longer to submit to his brutal control, and resolved to commit suicide. Having no instrument that she could use, she felt some difficulty in effecting her purpose. She held her breath for some time, but that did not succeed. She then tried to strangle herself with her hands, but that mode was equally unsuccessful. Her determination was so resolutely fixed, that in desperation she tore her hair out by the roots. Still death did not come to her relief. In vain she searched in every corner of the room for something with which she might effectually take away her life. Just as she was beginning to give up the idea as hopeless, her eye caught a sight of the glass in the window; she instantly broke a pane, and with a piece of it endeavoured to cut her throat; and yet she could not succeed in effecting her horrid purpose. At last, as a dernier resort, she resolved to swallow a piece of the broken glass, hoping by this means to choke herself. She did so, and the glass stuck in her throat, and produced the most excruciating agony. Her groans became audible; the husband became alarmed, and opened the door, when he found his wife apparently in the last struggles of death. Medical relief was immediately obtained, and although everything that surgical ingenuity could suggest was had recourse to, she died, a melancholy spectacle of the effects of unsubdued passion.

The two following cases shew how trifling a cause often incites to self-destruction:—

Madame N——, a once famous dancer at the French opera-house, was taken to task by her husband for not acquitting herself so well in the ballet as she usually did. She exhibited indications of passion at the, as she thought, unmerited reproof. When she arrived home, she resolved to die, but was much puzzled to effect her purpose. The next morning, shepurchased a potent poison, but when she returned to her home she found that her husband looked suspiciously at her, and appeared to watch her movements. She then made up her mind to take the fatal draught in the evening, as she was going in the carriage to the opera. She accordingly did so; the poison did not have an immediate effect. The ballet commenced, and Madame N—— was led on the stage; and it was not until she had commenced dancing that she began to feel the draught producing the desired effect. She complained of illness, and was removed to her dressing-room, where she expired in the arms of her husband, confessing that she had, in a fit of chagrin at his rebuke, swallowed poison!

A young gentleman, of considerable promise, of high natural and acquired attainments, had been solicited to make a speech at a public meeting, which was to take place in the town in which he resided. As he had never attempted to address extemporaneously a public body, he expressed himself extremely nervous as to the result, and asked permission to withdraw his name from the published list of speakers. This wish was not, however, complied with, as it was thought that when the critical moment arrived he would not be found wanting even in the art of public speaking. He had prepared himself with considerable care for the attempt. His name was announced from the chair; when he rose for the purpose of delivering his sentiments. The exordium was spoken without any hesitation; and his friends felt assured that he would acquit himself with great credit. He had not, however, advanced much beyond his prefatory observations, when he hesitated, and found himself incapable of proceeding. He then sat down, evidently excessively mortified. In this state he retired to a room where the members of the committee had previously met, and cut his throat with his penknife. He wounded the carotid artery, and died in a few minutes.

A case of suicide from mortified pride, somewhat similarto the last, occurred some years ago in London. A gentleman, whose imagination was much more active than his judgment, conceived that he was possessed of histrionic powers equal to those which were exhibited by the immortal Garrick. A manager of a London theatre, to whom he was introduced, allowed him to make his débût at his theatre. As is often the case, the public formed a different estimate of his abilities to that which the vanity of the young aspirant had induced him to form; and the consequence was, that he was well hissed and hooted for his presumption in attempting a character for which his talents so little adapted him. Being naturally sensitive, his failure preyed on his mind; and under the influence of the mortification, he hung himself, leaving in his room the following laconic epistle, addressed to his mother:—

“My Dear Mother,—All my hopes have been ruined. I fancied myself a man of genius; the reality has proved me to be a fool. I die, because life is no longer to be supported. Look charitably on this last action of my life. Adieu!”

A common cause of suicide is the feeling of false pride. The only reason assigned for the desperate act of Elizabeth Moyes, who threw herself from the Monument, was, that, owing to the reduced circumstances of her father, (a baker,) it was determined that she should procure a situation at a confectioner’s, and support herself. This she allowed to prey upon her mind, although she expressed a concurrence in the propriety of the course suggested. How true it is—

“Abstract what others feel, what others think,All pleasures sicken, and all glories sink.”Pope.

“Abstract what others feel, what others think,

All pleasures sicken, and all glories sink.”

Pope.

Owing to the fictitious notions abroad in society, the ridiculously false views which are taken of worldly honours, the ideas which a sickly sentimentality infuses into the mind, this feeling is engendered, to an alarming extent, through thedifferent ranks of society. This constitutes one great element which is undermining and disorganizing our social condition. A fictitious value is affixed to wealth and position in the world; it is estimated for itself alone, all other considerations being placed out of view.

“None think the great unhappy but the great.”

Vatel committed suicide because he was not able to prepare as sumptuous an entertainment as he wished for his guests.

We cannot conceive how this evil is to be obviated, unless it be possible to revolutionize the ideas which are generally attached to fame and worldly grandeur. It is difficult to persuade such persons that the end of fame is merely

“To have, when the original is dust,A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.”

“To have, when the original is dust,

A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.”

There is a nameless, undefinable something, that the world is taught to sigh after—is always in search of; a moralignis fatuus, which is dazzling to lead it from the road which points to true and unsophisticated happiness.

Persons naturally proud are less able than others to bear up against the distresses of life; they are more severely galled by the yoke of adversity; and hence this passion often produces mental derangement. Such characters exhibit a morbid desire for praise; it acts like moral nourishment to their souls; it is a stimulus that is almost necessary to their very being, forgetting that

“Praise too dearly loved, or warmly sought,Enfeebles all eternal weight of thought;’Till the fond soul, within itself unblest,Leans for all pleasure on another’s breast.”

“Praise too dearly loved, or warmly sought,

Enfeebles all eternal weight of thought;

’Till the fond soul, within itself unblest,

Leans for all pleasure on another’s breast.”

Dr. Reid justly observes, that “he who enters most deeply into the misfortunes of others, will be best able to bear his own. A practical benevolence, by habitually urging us to disinterested exertion, tends to alienate the attention from any single train of ideas, which, if favoured by indolence and self contemplation, might be in danger of monopolizing themind, and occasions us to lose a sense of our personal concerns in an enlarged and liberal sympathy with the general good.”

Villeneuve, the celebrated French admiral, when he was taken prisoner and brought to England, was so much grieved at his defeat that he studied anatomy in order to destroy himself. For this purpose he bought some anatomical plates of the heart, and compared them with his own body, in order to ascertain the exact situation of that organ. On his arrival in France, Buonaparte ordered that he should remain at Rennes, and not proceed to Paris. Villeneuve, afraid of being tried by a court-martial for disobedience of orders, and consequently losing his fleet, (for Napoleon had ordered him not to sail or to engage the English,) determined to destroy himself; and accordingly took his plates and compared them with the position of his heart. Exactly in the centre he made a mark with a large pin; then fixed it, as near as he could judge, in the same spot in his own breast, and shoved it on to its head; it penetrated his heart, and he expired. When the room was opened, he was found dead, the pin through his breast, and a mark in the plate corresponding with the wound.29

It has been said that after the death of Josephine, and when Buonaparte was overwhelmed with misfortunes, he attempted suicide. Those who consider Napoleon immaculate deny the accuracy of the charge. But in order to give the reader an opportunity of judging for himself, we lay before him Sir Walter Scott’s account of the transaction referred to. “Buonaparte,” he observes, “belonged to the Roman school of philosophy; and it is confidently reported by Baron Fane, his secretary—though not universally believed—that he designed to escape from life by an act of suicide. The Emperor, according to this account, had carried with him, ever since his retreat from Moscow, apacket containing a preparation of opium, made up in the same manner with that used by Condorcet, for self-destruction. His valet-de-chambre, in the night of the 12th or 13th of April, heard him arise, and pour something into a glass of water, drink, and return to bed. In a short time afterwards the man’s attention was called by sobs and stifled groans; an alarm took place in the chateau; some of the principal persons were roused, and repaired to Napoleon’s chamber. Yvan, the surgeon who had procured him the poison, was also summoned; but hearing the Emperor complain that the operation of the potion was not quick enough, he was seized with a panic of terror, and fled from the palace at full gallop. Napoleon took the remedies recommended, and a long fit of stupor ensued, with profuse perspiration. He awakened much exhausted, and surprised at finding himself still alive. He said aloud, after a few moments’ reflection, ‘Fate will not have it so;’ and afterwards appeared reconciled to undergo his destiny without similar attempts at personal violence.” Napoleon’s illness was, at the time, imputed to indigestion. A general of the highest distinction transacted business with Napoleon on the morning of the 13th of April. He seemed pale and dejected, as from recent and exhausting illness. His only dress was a night-gown and slippers; and he drank, from time to time, a quantity of ptisan, or some such liquid, which was placed beside him, saying he had suffered severely during the night, but that his complaint had left him.30

We cannot conceive a more piteous condition than that of a man of great ambition without the powers of mind which are indispensable for its gratification. In him a constant contest is going on between an intellect constitutionally weak, and a desire to distinguish himself in some particular department of life. How often a man so unhappily organized ends his career in a mad-house, or terminates his miserable existenceby suicide! Let men be taught to make correct estimates of their own capabilities, to curb in the imagination, to cease “building castles in the air,” if we wish to advance their mental and bodily health. “Ne sutor ultra crepidam,” said Apelles to the cobbler. A young man who “penned a stanza when he ought to engross,” blew out his brains because he had failed in inducing a London publisher to purchase an epic poem which he had written, and which he had the vanity to conceive was equal to Paradise Lost, forgetting that, in order to be a poet,—

“Nature’s kindling breathMust fire the chosen genius; nature’s handMust string his nerves and imp his eagle wings.”

“Nature’s kindling breath

Must fire the chosen genius; nature’s hand

Must string his nerves and imp his eagle wings.”

That this state of mind predisposes and often leads to the commission of suicide, numerous cases testify.

Despair often drives men to suicide. The dread of poverty and want; the hopes in which we often injudiciously place too much of our happiness entirely blasted; either honest or false pride humbled by public or private contempt; ambitious views suddenly and unexpectedly disappointed; pains of the body, the loss of those dear and near to us,—tend to originate this feeling, and induce the unhappy person to seek relief in self-murder.

How terrible is the situation of the man exposed to the influence of this passion, and deprived of the cheering and elevating influence of hope! We had an opportunity, some years back, of witnessing the case of a maniac, whose derangement of mind consisted in his having abandoned himself completely to despair. He laboured under no distinct or prominent delusion, but his mental alienation consisted in the total absence of all prospect of relief. The iron had entered his very soul; he appeared as if the hand of a relentless destiny had written on the threshold of his door, as on the gate of the Inferno of Dante, the heart-rending sentence, “Abandon all hope!”

A woman is seduced by some heartless and profligate wretch; she is in a short time forsaken and left to her fate. Her mind recurs to the past; she recalls to recollection her once happy state of innocence and peace. Scorned by the world, shunned by her relations and friends, she is driven to a state of agonizing distraction. Despair, in its worst features, takes possession of her mind, and under this feeling she puts an end to her existence. A man under the operation of this passion wrote as follows:—

“It has pleased the Almighty to weaken my understanding, to undermine my reason, and to render me unfit for the discharge of my duty. My blood rolls in billows and torrents of despair. It must have vent. How? I possess a place to which I am a dishonour, inasmuch as I am incapable of discharging it properly; I prevent some better man from doing it more justice. This piece of bread which I lament is all that I have to support myself and family; even this I do not merit; I eat it in sin, and yet I live. Killing thought! which a conscience hitherto uncorrupted inspires. I have a wife, also, and my child reproaches me with its existence. But you do not know, my dear friends, that if my unhappy life is not speedily ended, my weak head will require all your care, and I shall become a burthen rather than an assistance to you. It is better that I yield myself a timely sacrifice to misfortune, than, by permitting the delusion to continue longer, I consume the last farthing of my wife’s inheritance. It is a duty of every person to do that which his situation requires; reason commands it, religion approves. My life, such as it is, is a mere animal life, devoid of reason; in my mind, a life which stands in opposition to duty is moral death, and worse than that which is natural. In favour of the few whose life I cannot render happy, it is at least my duty not to become an oppression. I ought to relieve them from a weight which sooner or later cannot fail to crush them.”

This unfortunate man, after penning the above account of his morbid feelings, sent his wife to church on Sunday,May 13th, 1783; and after writing an addition to his journal, took a pair of scissors and attempted, although unsuccessfully, to terminate his life by cutting his throat. He then opened the arteries at the wrists, and again failed in destroying himself; he staggered to the window, and saw his wife returning home, upon which he seized a knife used for killing deer, and stabbed himself in the heart. He was lying weltering in his blood when his wife came in, but was not quite dead. M. le Clarc, who relates the case, observes, that he was a man of understanding, and of a lively wit. He possessed a great deal of theoretical learning; his heart was incorruptibly honest. Like every calm and determined self-murderer, he was proud; but his pride was not the pride of rank, of riches, or of learning, but that divine pride which arises from a consciousness of incorruptible honesty, and of being possessed of good powers of mind. The office he held was that of an assistant judge in a small college of justice at Insterberg. His mother had been once deranged in her mind.

Few persons have given a more striking example of this passion than the Abbé de Rancé, when first touched with remorse for the enormity of his past life, and before the disturbed state of his mind had settled into that turn for religious seclusion and mortification which produced the appalling austerities of La Trappe. “To a state of frantic despair,” says Don Lancelot, in his letter to La Mère Angelique of Port Royal, “succeeded a black melancholy. He sent away all his friends, and shut himself up in his mansion at Veret, where he would not see a creature. His whole soul, nay, even his bodily wants, seemed wholly absorbed in a deep and settled gloom. Shut up in a single room, he even forgot to eat and drink; and when the servant reminded him that it was bed-time, he started as from a deep reverie, and seemed unconscious that it was not still morning. When he was better, he would often wander in the woods for the entire day, wholly regardless of the weather. A faithful servant, who sometimes followed him by stealth, often watched him standing for hourstogether in one place, the snow and the rain beating on his head, whilst he, unconscious of his position, was wholly absorbed in painful recollections. Then, at the fall of a leaf, or the noise of the deer, he would awake as from a slumber, and, wringing his hands, hasten to bury himself in a thicker part of the wood, or else throw himself prostrate, with his face in the snow, and groan bitterly.”31

How many commit suicide from what is termed ablind impulse! They fancy that an internal voice tells them to kill themselves; and considering it impossible to resist what they term a destiny, they do so. A gentleman, a merchant of the city of London, had been exposed to great mental perturbation; his nervous system had received a severe shock. He suffered extremely from a dread of going mad. As he was walking home one afternoon, he heard a voice say, “Kill thyself!” “Commit suicide!” and from that moment he could not banish the idea from his mind. Two or three times he was on the eve of obeying the mandate of this internal voice; but he fortunately possessed sufficient resolution to resist the temptation. In this state of mind he consulted a physician, who ordered him to be cupped in the neighbourhood of the head. His bowels were attended to, and he was recommended to visit some friends in the north of Scotland, and to banish from his mind all ideas connected with business. He followed the advice of his judicious physician, and in a short time he completely recovered.

In the midst of health apparently perfect and uniform, a man was attacked with a sudden disposition to destroy. He seizeda stick, raised it, struck indiscriminately and broke everything that presented itself to him. After some seconds, the stick fell from his hands, and he appeared restored to himself. The man knew nothing of what he had just done. He was reproached, he was shewn the remnants of the things that he had broken; he thought they were ridiculing him, and he was greatly irritated. He was again seized with frenzy, and killed a person. He was taken before a court of justice, acquitted on the ground of insanity, and placed in an hospital. This disposition to destroy returned at distant intervals; it then came on more frequently; and finally, changed into fits of epilepsy. A person seized with this morbid desire is not always unconscious of the approach of the disposition; he has sometimes a presentiment of it, perceives its danger, seeks to combat it, and frequently succeeds in effecting his purpose.

A labourer, at the end of his day’s work, felt himself seized with an irresistible desire of running; he rushed upon the quay, which goes from the Louvre to the Grève: every obstacle was overcome. An attempt was made to stop him, but it was not successful. At last he dexterously engaged one of his arms in the wheel of a carriage, which happened to be within his reach. Thus withheld, he recovered his breath, became calm, and appeared to have no idea of what had occurred. This feeling was again manifested, and he was properly sent by his friends to an hospital, when it was discovered that he had a disease of the spinal marrow.

A man arrived upon the Pont Neuf; he rushed violently to the parapet, and precipitated himself into the Seine. He was seen by some of the bystanders, who drew him out of the water and saved his life. After some days of complete restoration, his friends asked him the reason of his strange conduct. He replied, “I cannot give any account. I am in the happiest situation in the world. I have only to play with fortune and with men. I have never been ill. I do not knowwhat troubles may come upon me. I can only recollect my arrival on the Pont Neuf, and my recall to life.”

The particulars of the following fact are recorded in Mrs. Mathews’ life of her husband. Mathews the comedian had lived for some days a vapid and inactive life. His spirit had been pressed down, “cabin’d, cribb’d, confin’d.” In this state of mind, a party of gentlemen called upon him, and proposed a day’s excursion. Accordingly, they all mounted their horses. Mrs. Mathews says—“My husband’s depressed spirits were exhilarated by the beauty of the weather, and the prospect of a day’s pleasure (free from the restraint of a room, listening to truisms) in the open air, where he would have uncontrolled power to gaze upon his idol, Nature, in her most beautiful form. He had not ridden out of the city for some weeks, and was in a state of childish delight and excitement. At this moment his eyes turned upon one of the party, a very little man, who was perched on a very tall horse, and who seemed unusually grave and important. Mr. Mathews looked at him for a moment; and the next, knocked him off with a smart blow, felling him to the ground. The whole party were struck with horror; but no one felt more shocked than he who had committed the outrage. He dismounted, picked up the little victim to his unaccountable freak, declared himself unable to give any motive for the action, but that it was an impulse he could not resist; and afterwards, in relating this extraordinary incident, he declared his conviction that it was done in a moment of frenzy, induced by the too sudden reaction from previous stagnation of all freedom and amusement.”

A young woman, about twenty years of age, who had been insane but a short time, and appeared to be recovering, after having assisted to whitewash and clean a ward in an asylum in which she was confined, was sitting, in the evening, taking tea with the nurse and several other inmates. She took advantage of the opportunity when the nurse went to the cupboard for some sugar to seize a knife with which some breadhad just been cut; and in the presence of the whole party, in an instant, before her hand could be arrested, cut her throat in so dreadful a manner that she died almost immediately.

A patient in the Asylum at Wakefield, the wife of a labourer, a kind-hearted and clever woman, was afflicted with such a propensity to destroy that she was almost constantly obliged to be kept in confinement; and when at liberty, she could not resist the pleasure of breaking anything she met with. In one instance, she saw some tea-cups on a table, and for some time walked backwards and forwards, and checked the inclination; but eventually the temptation proved too strong, and she swept them at once on to the floor. She afterwards regretted the circumstance; but the impulse was too powerful to be resisted.

A monomaniac (says Esquirol) heard a voice within him repeat these words—“Kill thyself! kill thyself!” He therefore committed suicide, in obedience to this superior power, whose order he dare not withstand.

A man, under a religious hallucination, believed himself to be in communication with the Deity. He fancied he heard a celestial voice saying—“My son, come and seat thyself by my side.” He opened the window to obey the invitation, fell down, and fractured his leg. When he was carried to his bed, he expressed the greatest astonishment on finding that he had precipitated himself from the window.

A young lady of considerable beauty was accosted in the street by a strange gentleman. She took no notice at first of the unwarrantable liberty; but on finding that he persisted in following her, she attempted, by quickening her pace, to escape. Being extremely timid, and having naturally a very nervous temperament, she was much excited. The person in the garb of a gentleman followed her for nearly a mile, and when he saw that she was home, he suddenly turned down a street, and disappeared. The young lady expressed herself extremely ill soon after she entered the house. A physician was sent for, who declared his astonishment at hersevere illness from a cause so trifling. During the following night she manifested indications of mental derangement, with a disposition to commit suicide. A strait-waistcoat was procured, and all apprehensions of her succeeding in gratifying the propensity of self-destruction was removed. Some weeks elapsed before she recovered. To all appearance she was perfectly well. She had no recollection of what had transpired, and expressed herself amazed when she was told that she had wished to kill herself. Two months after she left her bed she was missed. Search was made in every direction, but in vain. After the lapse of two days, she was discovered floating in a pond of water several miles from her home. In her pocket was discovered a piece of paper, on which were written the following lines:—“Oh, the misery and wretchedness I have experienced for the last month no one but myself can tell. A demon haunts me—life is insupportable. A voice tells me that I am destined to fall by my own hands. I leave this world for another, where I hope to enjoy more happiness. Adieu.”

We have no doubt that in this case, although the acute symptoms of insanity had subsided, she had not recovered completely her sane state of mind. None but those conversant with the subject of mental derangement would believe that so trifling a circumstance as that of being spoken to in the street would have produced so violent an attack of maniacal delirium as was witnessed in the case of this poor girl.

M. Esquirol states that he has never seen an unequivocal instance of any individual drawn to the commission of suicide by a kind of irresistible impulse, independently of any secret grievance, real or imaginary. Could the secret feelings of these suicides be accurately ascertained, there would generally, if not always, be found some lurking source of discontent, real or fanciful, in the breast, which serve as motives to their suicidal propensity. Many instances are on record, it is true, where men have put a period to their existence without any apparent visible cause or motive; butas Rousseau has justly observed, “Le bonheur n’a point d’enseigne exterieur: pour en juger, il faudrait lire dans le c[oe]ur de l’homme heureux.”

“Individuals,” says Esquirol, “who appear outwardly the residence of happiness, are often inwardly the focus of chagrin, and tortured with distracting passions. That man can destroy his own life, being at the same time happy in his mind, is a phenomenon which human reason cannot comprehend.”

A diseased temperament, a serious lesion of one or more of the viscera, a gradual exhaustion of the energies of the system, may so aggravate the miseries of life as to hasten the period of voluntary death. But how are we to account for the irresistible propensity to suicide which sometimes exists, independent of any apparent mental or physical ailments? A melancholic, whose case was published in Fourcroy’s Medical Journal of 1792, once said, “I am in prosperous circumstances; I have a wife and a child who constitute my happiness; I cannot complain of bad health, and still I feel a horrible propensity to throw myself into the Seine.” His declaration was too fatally verified in the event. Crichton was once consulted upon the case of a young man, twenty-four years of age, in full vigour and health, who was tormented by periodical accessions of these gloomy feelings and propensities. At those times he meditated his own destruction. But on a nearer view of the fatal act, he shrunk back into himself, and recoiled with horror from its execution. Without relinquishing his project, he never had the courage to accomplish it. “It is in cases like these,” says Crichton, “that energetic measures of coercion, and the effectual excitement of terror, should lend their aid to the powers of medicine and regimen.”

In many cases of suicide, the act is preceded by a long train of perverted reasoning. These individuals become taciturn, morose, pusillanimous, and distrustful. The future presents itself to their view under the most unfavourable aspect, and despair becomes painted on their countenances.Their eyes become hollow; they complain of sleeplessness, and are disturbed by frightful dreams. The bowels are in an inactive state; the functions of the liver become to a certain extent suspended. It is in this state that they contemplate the idea of suicide; and the diaries which some have kept of their sensations and thoughts disclose the various kinds of death which they have contemplated and rejected, one after another, often for reasons the most preposterous and ridiculous. It is singular that in these journals they generally endeavour to hide their despondency and their mental aberration, while their moral and intellectual weakness is sure to be betrayed. They often accuse themselves of insanity, and bewail their unhappy lot; others argue most ingeniously in favour of their meditated suicide. Others again, subdued as it were by the force of the moral and religious principles which they have imbibed, represent to themselves that the act they contemplate is contrary to the moral end for which man was created—fatal to the welfare and happiness of their families. Then ensues a conflict in their breasts. If reason and religion prevail, the project is abandoned,—sometimes abandoned altogether. If otherwise, the suicide is committed. Falret knew the case of a woman who exhibited a tendency to suicide, but who was delivered for a period from the commission of the crime by the principles of religion in which her mind had been educated. A long period elapsed before she could reconcile herself to the act of suicide, and then she argued herself into it by the following piece of sophistry:—“There are no general rules without exceptions; and I am the precise exception in this case: therefore I may commit suicide without violating my religious principles.”

Having once conceived the idea of suicide, the mind is often rendered so miserable in consequence of it, that the person rushes into the arms of death in order to escape from the terrible state of anticipation. Others meditate on the bloody deed for years. Rousseau, after drawing a piteous portrait of his proscribed and solitary condition, and of thestate of his health, adds, “Puisque mon corps n’est plus pour moi qu’un embarras, un obstacle à mon repos, cherchons donc à m’en degager le plus tôt que je pourrai.”

Tedium vitæ, orennui, is said to be a frequent cause of suicide. We have heard of an Englishman who hanged himself in order to avoid the trouble of pulling off and on his clothes. Goëthe knew a gardener, and the overseer of some extensive pleasure-grounds, who once splenetically exclaimed, “Shall I see these clouds for ever passing, then, from east to west?” So singularly developed was this weariness of life, this feeling of satiety, in one of our distinguished men, that it is said of him that he viewed with dissatisfaction the return of spring, and wished, by way of change, that everything would, for once, be red instead of green.32

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