I actually made such reflection while tossing upon my sleepless couch!
It had one good effect; it summoned reason to my aid; and I asked myself: Why was I not like him, with a soul incapable of sorrow? What was there to cause me the agony I was enduring? I was young, and in good health: why was I not happy? Because my mother had gone mad with grief for the death of a wicked man? Surely that could be no cause for the misery I myself suffered, or should not have been to a person of proper sense? My mother had been guilty of folly, and was reaping its reward. Why should I allow myself to be punished also? It could not aid her: why should I give way to it?
“But your sister is also in sorrow,” whispered some demon into the ear of my spirit, “and how can you be happy?”
“So are thousands of others in sorrow, and ever will be,” answered reason. “Let those be happy who can. The fool who makes himself wretched because others are, will ever meet misery, and ever deserve it.”
Selfish reason counselled in vain: for care had mounted my soul, and could not be cast off.
Volume Two—Chapter Eighteen.
A Melancholy End.
The next morning, I was forbidden by the physician to come into my mother’s presence.