“About Guyonism I only wish the papers were more numerous. There was no error of heart—scarcely one of judgment in it, but a peculiar mental organization, driven by suffering on suffering, by such bereavement as can never be appreciated in a land like this, and intensity of devotion, to a morbid development. A mind of less strength or a heart of less truthfulness and sincerity would have been wrecked, as many a noble one has been.... Strong enthusiasm of character often drove him into peculiar positions, but his sound judgment and elevated piety always carried him through triumphantly, turning often the natural temperament to good account.”
These excesses of self-mortification were the outcome of a transient and superficial mood rather than of his real and underlying character. The slow torture of the twenty-one months at Ava and Oung-pen-la had left behind a residuum of temporary enfeeblement. His strong mental vision was for a time beclouded by the mists which arose from his shattered physical constitution. The loss of wife and child at Amherst trod close upon the sufferings at Ava, and these gloomy views and practices were born during the long ensuing domestic solitude. The deep shadow of this loneliness lies athwart many of his letters.
To Mrs. Hasseltine.
“The Solitary’s Lament.
“‘Together let us sweetly live,
Together let us die,
And hand in hand those crowns receive
That wait us in the sky.’
“Thus Ann and I, for many a year,
Together raised our prayer;