Again. It was only about four years before I was kidnapped, that Mr. O. S. Fowler, the great Phrenologist, examined his head, and expressed his opinion of his mental condition in nearly these words. “Mr. Packard, you are losing your mind—your faculties are all dwindling—your mind is fast running out—in a few years you will not even know your own name, unless your tread-mill habits are broken up. Your mind now is only working like an old worn out horse in a tread mill.”
Thus our differences of opinion can be accounted for on scientific principles. Here we see his sluggish, conservative temperament, rejecting light, which costs any effort to obtain or use—clinging, serf-like, to the old paths, as with a death grasp; while my active, radical temperament, calls for light, to bear me onward and upward, never satisfied until all available means are faithfully used to reach a more progressive state. Now comes the question. Is activity and progression in knowledge and intelligence, an indication of a sane, natural condition, or is it an unnatural, insane indication? And is a stagnant, torpid, and retrogressive state of mentality, a natural or an unnatural condition—a sane, or an insane state?
In our mental states we simply grew apart, instead of together. He was dwindling, dying; I was living, growing, expanding. And this natural development of intellectual power in me, seemed to arouse this morbid feeling of jealousy towards me, lest I outshine him. That is, it stimulated his monomania into exercise, by determining to annihilate or crush the victim in whose mental and moral magnetism he felt so uneasy and dissatisfied with himself. While, at the same time, the influence of my animal magnetism, was never unpleasant to him; but, on the contrary, highly gratifying. Yea, I have every reason to believe he ever regarded me as a model wife, and model mother, and housekeeper. He often made this remark to me: “I never knew a woman whom I think could equal you in womanly virtues.”
Again. While on this recruiting tour, I made it my home for several weeks at Mr. David Field’s, who married my adopted sister, then living in Lyons, New York. I made his wife my confidant of my family trials, to a fuller degree than I ever had to any other human being, little dreaming or suspecting that she was noting my every word and act, to detect if possible, some insane manifestations. But, to her surprise, eleven weeks observation failed to develop the first indication of insanity. The reason she was thus on the alert, was, that my arrival was preceded by a letter from Mr. Packard, saying his wife was insane, and urged her to regard all my representations of family matters as insane statements. Then he added, “Now, Mrs. Field, I must require of you one thing, and that is, that you burn this letter as soon as you have read it; don’t even let your husband see it at all, or know that you have had a letter from me, and by all means, keep this whole subject a profound secret from Elizabeth.”
My sister, true to Mr. Packard’s wishes, burned this letter, and buried the subject entirely in oblivion. But when she heard that I was incarcerated in an Asylum, then, in view of all she did know, and in view of what she did not know, she deeply suspected there was foul play in the transaction, and felt it to be her duty to tell her husband all she knew. He fully indorsed her suspicions, and they both undertook a defence for me, when she received a most insulting and abusive letter from Mr. Packard, wherein he, in the most despotic manner, tried to browbeat her into silence. Many tears did this devoted sister shed in secret over this letter and my sad fate—as this letter revealed Mr. Packard’s true character to her in an unmasked state. “O, how could that dear, kind woman live with such a man!” was her constant thought.
Nerved and strengthened by her husband’s advice, she determined to visit me in the Asylum, and, if possible, obtain a personal interview. She did so. She was admitted to my room. There she gave me the first tidings I ever heard of that letter. While at the Asylum, my attendants, amongst others, asked her this question: “Mrs. Field, can you tell us why such a lady as Mrs. Packard, is shut up in this Asylum; we have never seen the least exhibition of insanity in her; and one in particular said, I saw her the first day she was entered, and she was then just the same quiet, perfect lady, you see her to be to day—now do tell us why she is here?”
Her reply I will not give, since her aggravated and indignant feelings prompted her to clothe it in very strong language against Mr. Packard, indicating that he ought to be treated as a criminal, who deserved capital punishment. In my opinion, sister would have come nearer the truth, had she said he ought to be treated just as he is treating his wife—as a monomaniac.
And I hope I shall be pardoned, if I give utterance to brother’s indignant feelings, in his own words, for the language, although strong, does not conflict with Christ’s teachings or example. Among the pile of letters above alluded to, which Mr. Packard left accidentally in my room, was one from this Mr. Field, which seemed to be an answer to one Mr. Packard wrote him, wherein it seemed he had been calling Mr. Field to account for having heard that he had called him a “devil,” and demanded of him satisfaction, if he had done so; for Mr. Field makes reply: “I do believe men are possessed with devils now a days, as much as they were in Christ’s days, and I believe too that some are not only possessed with one devil, but even seven devils, and I believe you are the man!” I never heard of his denying the charge as due Mr. Field afterwards!
From my own observations in an insane asylum, I am fully satisfied that Mr. Field is correct in his premises, and I must also allow that he has a right of opinion in its application.
Looking from these various stand-points, it seems to me self-evident, that this Great Drama is a woman’s rights struggle. From the commencement to its present stage of development, this one insane idea seems to be the backbone of the rebellion: A married woman has no rights which her husband is bound to respect.