ON THE INFLUENCE OF CERTAIN MENTAL STATES IN INDUCING THE DISPOSITION
TO SUICIDE.
Moral causes of disease—Neglect of psychological
medicine—Mental philosophy a branch of medical study—Moral
causes of suicide—Tables of Falret, &c.—Influence of
remorse—Simon Brown, Charles IX. of France—Massacre of
St. Bartholomew—Terrible death of Cardinal Beaufort, from
remorse—The Chevalier de S——. Influence of disappointed
love—Suicide from love—Two singular cases—Effects of
jealousy—Othello—Suicide from this passion—The French opera
dancer—Suicide from wounded vanity—False pride—The remarkable
case of Villeneuve, as related by Buonaparte—Buonaparte’s
attempt at suicide—Ambition—Despair, cases of suicide from—The
Abbé de Rancé—Suicide from blind impulse—Cases—Mathews,
the comedian—Opinion of Esquirol on the subject—Ennui,
birth of—Common cause of suicide in France—Effect of
speculating in stocks—Defective education—Diffusion of
knowledge—“Socialism” a cause of self-destruction—Suicide
common in Germany—Werter—Goëthe’s attempt at suicide—Influence
of his writings on Hackman—Suicide from reading Tom Paine’s
“Age of Reason”—Suicide to avoid punishment—Most remarkable
illustrations—Political excitement—Nervous irritation—Love
of notoriety—Hereditary disposition—Is death painful? fully
considered, with cases—Influence of irreligion.
In our voyage through life, the passions are said to be the gales that
swell the canvass of the mental bark; they obstruct or accelerate
its course, and render the passage favourable or full of danger, in
proportion as they blow steadily from a proper point, or are adverse or
tempestuous. Like the wind itself, the passions are engines of mighty
power and of high importance. Without them we cannot proceed, and with
them we may be shipwrecked and lost. Curbed in and regulated, they
constitute the source of our most elevated happiness; but when not
subdued, they drive the vessel on the rocks and quicksands of life, and
ruin us.
“How few beneath auspicious planets born
With swelling sails make good the promis’d port,
With all their wishes freighted.”
YOUNG.
“In this country,” Dr. J. Johnson justly observes, “where man’s
relations with the world around him are multiplied beyond all example
in any other country, in consequence of the intensity of interest
attached to politics, religion, amusement, literature, and the arts;
where the temporal concerns of an immense proportion of the population
are in a perpetual state of vacillation; where spiritual affairs excite
in the minds of many great anxiety; and where speculative risks are
daily involving in difficulties all classes of society,—the operation
of physical causes in the production of disease dwindles into complete
insignificance when compared with that of anxiety and perturbation of
mind.”
“Mens conscia recti in corpore sano,” is Horace’s well-known
description of the happy man. Lucretius appears to have formed a
correct estimate of the most important bodily and mental conditions on
which our happiness depends:—
“O wretched mortals! race perverse and blind!
Through what dread, dark, what perilous pursuits
Pass ye this round of being! Know ye not,
Of all ye toil for, Nature nothing asks,
But for the _body_ freedom from disease,
And sweet unanxious quiet for the mind?”
Like human beings, the sciences are closely connected with, and are
mutually dependent upon, one another. The link in the chain may not be
apparent, but it has a real and palpable existence. Medical and moral
science are more nearly allied than we should, _à priori_, conclude.
We speak of the science of medicine, not the practice of it; for,
like judgment and wit, or, as the author of the School for Scandal
ironically observes, like _man and wife_, how seldom are they seen in
happy union. Garth feelingly alludes to this unnatural divorce:—
“The healing art now, sick’ning, hangs its head,
And, once a _science_, has become a _trade_.”
Psychological medicine has been sadly neglected. We recoil from the
study of mental philosophy as if we were encroaching on holy ground. So
great is the prejudice against this branch of science, that it has been
observed, that to recommend a man to study metaphysics was a delicate
mode of suggesting the propriety of confining him in a lunatic asylum!
In order to become a useful physician, it is necessary to become a good
metaphysician; so says a competent authority. It was not, however,
Dr. Cullen’s intention to recommend that species of philosophy which
confounds the mind without enlightening it, and which, like an _ignis
fatuus_, dazzles only to lead us from the truth. To the medical man we
can conceive no preliminary study more productive of advantage than
that which tends to call into exercise the latent principle of thought,
and to accustom the mind to close, rigid, and accurate observation.
The science of mind, when properly investigated, teaches us the laws
of our mental frame, and shews us the origin of our various modes and
habits of thought and feeling—how they operate upon one another, and
how they are cultivated and repressed; it disciplines us in the art of
induction, and guards us against the many sources of fallacy in the
practice of making inferences; it gives precision and accuracy to our
investigations, by instructing us in the nicer discriminations of truth
and falsehood.
The value of mental philosophy as a branch of education will be
properly appreciated when we consider that this ennobling principle was
given to us for the purpose of directing and controlling our powers and
animal propensities, and bringing them into that subjection whereby
they become beneficial to the individual and to the world at large,
enabling him to exchange with others those results which the power
of his own and the gigantic efforts of other minds have developed;
maintaining and perpetuating the most dignified and exalted state of
happiness, the attribute of social life; unfolding not only treasures
which the concentrated powers of individuals are enabled to discover,
but developing those more quiet and unobtrusive characteristics of
virtuous life, those social affections, which are alone calculated to
make our present state of being happy.
Independently of the utility of the study, what a world of delight is
open to the mind of that man who has devoted some portion of his time
to the investigation of his mental organization! In him we may truly
behold—
“Nature, gentle, kind,
By culture tamed, by liberty refreshed,
And all the radiant fruits of truth matured.”
When we take into consideration the tremendous influence which the
different mental emotions have over the bodily functions, when we
perceive that violent excitement of mind will not only give rise to
serious functional disorder, but actual organic disease, leading to the
commission of suicide, how necessary does it appear that he to whose
care is entrusted the lives of his fellow-creatures, should have made
this department of philosophy a matter of serious consideration! It
is no logical argument against the study of mental science, to urge
that we are in total ignorance of the nature or constitution of the
human understanding. We know nothing of the nature of objects which are
cognizable to sense, and which can be submitted to actual experiment,
and yet we are not deterred from the investigation of their properties
and mutual influences. The passions are to be considered, in a medical
point of view, as a part of our constitution. They stimulate or depress
the mind, as food and drink do the body. Employed occasionally, and in
moderation, both may be of use to us, and are given to us by nature for
this purpose; but when urged to excess, the system is thrown off its
balance, and disease is the result.
To the medical philosopher, nothing can be more deeply interesting than
to trace the reciprocity of action existing between different mental
conditions, and affections of particular organs. Thus the passion of
fear, when excited, has a sensible influence on the action of the
heart; and when the disease of this organ takes place independently of
any mental agitation, the passion of fear is powerfully roused. Anger
affects the liver and confines the bowels, and frequently gives rise
to an attack of jaundice; and in hepatic and intestinal disease, how
irritable the temper is!
Hope, or the anticipation of pleasure, affects the respiration; and
how often do we see patients, in the last stage of pulmonary disease,
entertaining sanguine expectations of recovery to the very last!
As the passions exercise so despotic a tyranny over the physical
economy, it is natural to expect that the crime of suicide should
often be traced to the influence of mental causes. In many cases,
it is difficult to discover whether the brain, the seat of the
passions, be primarily or secondarily affected. Often the cause of
irritation is situated at some distance from the cerebral organ; but
when the fountain-head of the nervous system becomes deranged, it
will react on the bodily functions, and produce serious disease long
after the original cause of excitement is removed. It is not our
intention to attempt to explain the _modus operandi_ of mental causes
in the production of the suicidal disposition. That such effects
result from an undue excitement of the mind cannot for one moment
be questioned. Independently of mental perturbation giving rise to
maniacal suicide, there are certain conditions of mind, dependent
upon acquired or hereditary disposition, or arising from a defective
expansion of the intellectual faculties, which originate the desire for
self-destruction. These states will all be alluded to in the course of
the present inquiry.
Some idea of the influence of certain mental states on the body will
be obtained by an examination of the various tables which have been
published, in this and other countries, respecting the causes of
suicide, as far as they could be ascertained.
The following suicides were committed in London, between the years 1770
and 1830:[19]—
_Indication of Causes._ _Men._ _Women._
Poverty 905 511
Domestic grief 728 524
Reverse of fortune 322 283
Drunkenness and misconduct 287 208
Gambling 155 141
Dishonour and calumny 125 95
Disappointed ambition 122 410
Grief from love 97 157
Envy and jealousy 94 53
Wounded self-love 53 53
Remorse 49 37
Fanaticism 16 1
Misanthropy 3 3
Causes unknown 1381 377
———— ————
Total 4337[20] 2853
According to a table formed by Falret of the suicides which took place
between 1794 and 1823, the following results appear:—Of 6782 cases, 254
were from disappointed love, and of this number 157 were women; 92 were
from jealousy; 125 from being calumniated; 49 from a desire, without
the means, of vindicating their characters; 122 from disappointed
ambition; 322 from reverses of fortune; 16 from wounded vanity; 155
from gambling; 288 from crime and remorse; 723 from domestic distress;
905 from poverty; 16 from fanaticism.
In preparing the present work, we have endeavoured to obtain access to
documents which would throw some light on the probable origin of the
many cases of self-destruction which have taken place within the last
four or five years. In many cases we could obtain no insight into the
motives of the individuals; but in nine-tenths of those whose histories
we succeeded in making ourselves somewhat conversant with, we found
that mental causes played a very conspicuous part in the drama. Our
experience on this point accords with that of many distinguished French
physicians who have devoted their time and talents to the consideration
of the subject.
In considering the influence of mental causes, we shall in the first
instance point out the effects of certain passions and dispositions
of the individual on the body; then investigate the operation of
education, irreligion, and certain unhealthy conditions of the mind
which predispose the individual to derangement and suicide.
There is no passion of the mind which so readily drives a person to
suicide as remorse. In these cases, there is generally a shipwreck of
all hope. To live is horror; the infuriated sufferer feels himself an
outcast from God and man; and though his judgment may still be correct
upon other subjects, it is completely overpowered upon that of his
actual distress, and all he thinks of and aims at is to withdraw with
as much speed as possible from the present state of torture, totally
regardless of the future.
“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,[22] were—“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:—
SCENE—_The Cardinal’s Bed-chamber_.
_Enter_ KING HENRY, SALISBURY, and WARWICK.
_King Hen._ How fares my Lord? Speak, Beaufort, to thy sovereign.
_Cardinal._ If thou be’st Death, I’ll give thee England’s treasure,
Enough to purchase such another island,
So thou wilt let me live, and feel no pain.
_King Hen._ Ah! what a sign it is of evil life
When death’s approach is seen so terrible.
_Warwick._ Beaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee.
_Cardinal._ Bring me unto my trial when you will.
Died he[23] not in his bed? Where should he die?
Can I make men live whe’er they will or no?
O, torture me no more, I will confess—
Alive again? then shew me where he is:
I’ll give a thousand pound to look upon him—
He hath no eyes, the dust hath blinded them.—
Comb down his hair; look! look! it stands upright,
Like lime-twigs set to catch my winged soul.—
Give me some drink, and bid the apothecary
Bring the strong poison that I bought of him.
_King Hen._ O thou eternal Mover of the Heav’ns,
Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch.
O, beat away the busy meddling fiend,
That lays strong siege unto this wretch’s soul,
And from his bosom purge this black despair.
_Warwick._ See how the pangs of death do make him grin!
_Salisbury._ Disturb him not; let him pass peaceably.
_King Hen._ Peace to his soul, if God’s good pleasure be!
Lord Cardinal, if thou think’st on heaven’s bliss,
Lift up thy hand, make signal of thy hope.—
He dies, and makes no sign—O God, forgive him!
_Warwick._ So bad a death argues a monstrous life.
_King Hen._ Forbear to judge, for we are sinners all.—
Close up his eyes, and draw the curtain close,
And let us all to meditation.[24]
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 from the 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 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 years_ afterwards, 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 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 private asylums. 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 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 won
Because I’m valued as a _money-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, in 1770. 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 request did
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 a _ruse_ to 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 carefully watched; 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 the earth 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 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, she
purchased 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 similar to 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.
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 the different 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.”
There is a nameless, undefinable something, that the world is taught
to sigh after—is always in search of; a moral _ignis 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_.”
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 the mind, 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, a packet 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
existence by 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 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 hours together 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 a _blind 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 seized a 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 know what 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 bread had
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.