CHAPTER VI.
SUICIDE FROM FASCINATION.
Singular motives for committing suicide—A man who delighted in torturing himself—A dangerous experiment—Pleasures of carnage—Disposition to leap from precipices—Lord Byron’s allusion to the influence of fascination—Miss Moyes and the Monument—A man who could not trust himself with a razor—Esquirol’s opinion of such cases—Danger of ascending elevated places.
How strange, extraordinary, and inexplicable are the motives which often lead to the commission of suicide! Many have been induced to rush into the arms of death in order to avoid the pain which they fancy accompanies dissolution. “Hic, rogo, non furor est, ne moriare mori?” Others have been apparently led to the perpetration of the crime by a desire to ascertain what sensations attended the act of dying; whilst some have been influenced by a feeling of fascination, and have stated that they experienced ecstatic delight at the idea of self-immolation.
The case of a man is recorded who felt the most exquisite delight in torturing himself. He had often expressed a wish to be hanged, from the notion that this Newgate mode of terminating life must give rise to sensations of great pleasure. The idea occurred to him one day of trying the experiment. He procured a piece of cord, attached it to the ceiling, and suspended himself from it; fortunately for the poor infatuated man, the servant entered the room a few minutes afterwards, and cut him down. Life was not extinct. The man expressed that he felt, during the few moments that he was hanging, a thrilling delight, which no language that he could use could convey anything like an adequate expression of. There was no doubt that this man laboured under an abnormal condition of the mind, which, if not amounting to insanity, certainly approached very nearly the confines of that disease.[41]
A woman was admitted some years back into one of our metropolitan hospitals who had a propensity to cut her person with every sharp instrument that she could procure. It was not her intention to kill herself; and when reasoned with on the folly of her actions, she observed that she was impelled by no other motive than the fascinating pleasure she experienced whenever she succeeded in drawing blood.
A lady, a passenger on board of a ship bound for the East Indies, was frequently heard to express a wish to know what feeling a person experienced in the act of being drowned. She fancied the sensations must be of a pleasurable character. Her fellow-passengers laughed at her whenever she alluded to the matter. Having introduced the subject again during dinner, she observed, “Well, I intend to try the experiment to-morrow morning.” The threat only excited the merriment of those who heard it. In the morning, whilst the passengers were on deck, the lady plunged into the sea, to the astonishment of everybody. Luckily for her, the ship was becalmed, and her life was saved.
An extraordinary young man, who lived at Paris, and who was passionately fond of mechanics, shut himself up one evening in his apartment, and bound not only his chest and stomach, but also his arms, legs, and thighs, with ropes full of knots, the ends of which he fastened to hooks in the wall. After having passed a considerable part of the night in this situation, he wished to disengage himself, but attempted it in vain. Some neighbouring females, who were up, heard his cries, and, calling for assistance, they forced open the door of his room, when they found him swinging in the air, with only one arm extricated. He was immediately carried to the lieutenant-general of the police for examination, when he declared that he had often put similar trials into execution, as he experienced indescribable pleasure in them. He confessed that at first he felt pain, but that after the cords became tight to a certain degree, he was soon rewarded by the most exquisite sensations of pleasure.[42]
“As the chill dews of evening were surrounding our bivouac,” says the author of the “Recollections of the Peninsula,” “a staff officer, with a courier, came galloping into it, and alighted at the quarters of our general. It was soon known amongst us that a severe and sanguinary action had been fought by our brother soldiers at Talavera. Disjointed rumours spoke of a dear-bought field, a heavy loss, and a subsequent retreat. I well remember how we all gathered round our fires to listen, to conjecture, and to talk about this glorious, but bloody event. We regretted that we had borne no share in the honours of such a day; and we talked with an undefined pleasure about the carnage. Yes! strange as it may appear, soldiers, and not they alone, talk of the danger of battle fields with a sensation which partakes of pleasure.”
A watchmaker of Aberdeen, who had been looking over the precipices of Loch-na-Gair, suddenly felt a desire to precipitate himself from the height, and having first taken a step or two back for the purpose, he flung himself off.
A gentleman travelling through Switzerland, with his wife, came to an eminence commanding an extensive and beautiful view of the surrounding country. He went, accompanied by his wife, to the edge of a mountainous cliff, and, turning round to his lady, he observed—“I have lived long enough!” and in a moment threw himself down the precipice.