“Who? Me? Why, doctor, I’m Smith!”
LEAVES FROM A SUICIDE’S DIARY
I was very young when the idea of suicide first suggested itself to me;—my life had its troubles as far back as my memory extends. I have a vivid recollection of taking a certain degree of interest in the subject when I was a mere lad,—long before I first thought of keeping a record of my impressions. My father had whipped me for some trivial matter; so trivial was it, and so severe my punishment, that I was overwhelmed with a sense of the cruel injustice of it all. Father was a stern, cold man, and a man of moods. He could be affectionate at times, and I presume that deep down in his heart he loved me, but, as I have said, he was a man of moods—and they were not always pleasant ones for those around him. It is a curious psychic fact that some men are subject to storms of passion which, concealed through politic motives from all but those most entitled to consideration, seemingly must be vented upon those whom affection should protect. My father was such a man, and I, his eldest child, was the member of the family who most often suffered from his horrible nerve storms. As I grew older he became more and more inconsiderate in his treatment of me, and more and more severe in his punishments.
I believe that all boys of good breeding and average physical stamina, are conscious at times that paternal punishment is frequently dictated by love and sincere interest in the welfare of the victim. It is this sort of punishment that is followed by a healthy moral and physical reaction. But with punishment undeserved, and out of all proportion to the offense which it is intended to reprove, it is quite different. Once let a boy experience such punishment, and there arises in him a sense of rebellion against parental authority, and his respect and affection for the parent becomes tinctured with bitterness that even Time cannot efface.
Once let the iron of vindictive resentment against oppression and injustice enter his soul, and your loving and lovable boy becomes transformed—he ages perceptibly, and his fair young life, his innocent childhood is gone—to return no more. “When I am a man!” he cries, and that part of the river of life which flows between childhood and manhood,—his youth,—is spanned by a bridge of sighs over which he who crosses can not return. “WHEN I AM A MAN!” Alas! the bitter words are hardly spoken ere the boy is a man—and such a man! A man without memory of happy and tranquil youth—is he not a flower that has bloomed to a semblance of maturity, yet has never been pervaded by that subtle fragrance which only the warm, tender affection of budding youth imparts?
In my case the effect was very peculiar; I was made to feel not only the injustice of my punishment, but a profound sense of humiliation. My pride was wounded more than my physical body—and, God knows, that was wounded severely enough. Ah, thou hadst a heavy hand, oh father mine! Would that I had experienced more of resentment and less of mortification. The former would have been bad enough, but the latter made life a hell on earth for me. I was fragile, nervous, sensitive, and of a physique that ill bore abuse. Sensitive though my physical body was, I had a mental make-up that was even more so. How I brooded over that terrible whipping—the last my father ever gave me, for he died soon after. The world seemed so dark and gloomy to me. There was no rift in those sombre clouds that gave forth the bitter rain which tinctured my young life with gall and wormwood. There was no happiness anywhere.
My mother, angel that she was, and is,—if there be aught of justice or compassion in the hereafter,—tried to stem the torrent of grief that was overwhelming my young life, tried to dispel the poisonous miasm that had disseminated itself throughout every element of my moral and intellectual being, by such love and consolation as only a tender, sympathetic mother can give, but in vain. A constant, oppressive, deeply rooted melancholy took possession of me. I lost my animation and became as near a misanthrope as one of my years and limited experience could possibly be. And the shadow of that storm cloud of emotion has never been quite dissipated in the wearing of the passing years of life’s battle. Woe to him the memory of whose youth is enwrapped in a funereal pall and in whose mouth there remains the bitter taste of humiliation, of outraged pride and self-respect.
It was during the period immediately following the castigation I have mentioned, that the notion of self-destruction first crystallized in my mind. I do not remember just how I reasoned upon the matter; I recall clearly enough, however, that I was profoundly impressed with the idea that my woes were bearing me down to the depths of misery and despair. There rested upon me a dreadful incubus from which there seemed to be but one means of escape.
I had seen persons lying dead, and I remember that in my despairing, hopeless state of mind the thought of the peaceful, quiet expression upon their faces was positively fascinating to me. I found myself dwelling upon it with much interest, and a feeling akin to envy.