"I mean, that I canna live!" he replied, energetically, seizing the Bible with a spasmodic grasp—closing it—throwing it to the back of the bed—then falling in an instant into a state of real dejection, with his arms folded over his breast, and his eyes cast down.
"Grief often produces these gloomy thoughts," said I; "but they are the mere fancies of a sick mind—generated in sorrow, and dying with the time-subdued cause that produces them. There is not a bereaved husband, wife, parent, or child in the land, that does not, in the first struggle with a new grief, entertain and cherish, for passing moments of agony, such sick fancies of rebelling nature. You have not yet given time and your energies a fair trial. You must have patience."
"There is some consolation in that," he replied. "I am glad when I think that the thought that haunts and alarms me is no sae dangerous as it sometimes appears to me. This book (sweet comforter!) tells me that Tobit prayed to be dissolved, and become earth, because o' his sorrow. It tells me, also, that Job, in his agonies, cried, 'My soul chooseth strangling and death rather than life.' My experience o' the ills o' life (and a man o' sixty-five must have some portion o' that) informs me o' the truth o' what you have told me, that an extraordinary burden o' grief often wrings frae the sick soul a wish to dee and be at rest. But oh! I fear my situation is different. I hae mair than a wish to be dissolved; for sure none o' my brethren in sorrow"—here his voice fell almost to a whisper, and tears rolled down his cheek—"ever lay wi' the like o' that"—holding up a razor—"under his sick pillow."
I was alarmed, being utterly unprepared for this exhibition.
"You need be under nae alarm," he continued, wiping the tears from his eyes. "My courage is not yet strong enough. God be praised for it! Moments o' fearfu fortitude sometimes come owre me, and I have held that instrument in my clenched hand—ay, within an inch o' my bared throat; but the resolution passes as quickly as it comes, and terror, cowardice, and a shiverin cauld—dreadfu to suffer—come in their place. Lay it past, sir—lay it past."
I obeyed; and, as I proceeded to place the instrument on the top of a chest of drawers, I heard the noise of some one in the passage, with suppressed ejaculations of—"O God! O God!"
"I wadna hae shown you that," he continued, as I sat down, "but that it is my wish to tell you the warst; for nae man can expect assistance, if he is ashamed or afraid to show his necessities and his danger. I didna send for you to cure my body, but to examine my mind, and tell me if it is sound and healthy, or weak and diseased, and therefore I will conceal naething frae ye that may show you its state and condition."
I was pleased to find I had so tractable a patient. I paused for a moment, to consider in what way I should draw him out, and on what side I should attack him—whether I should argue calmly with him, and endeavour to stimulate his feelings of duty to his Maker, to himself and his poor daughter; or shake him roughly as a vain and sinful dreamer who had voluntarily swallowed a pernicious soporific, and try to awaken him, and keep him awake, after the manner of our remedial endeavours to save those who have attempted to poison themselves by laudanum. I saw, in an instant, that he was by far too strong-minded a man to be operated upon effectually by the mere charm of the imputed reach and strength of our cabalistic lore—an agent, if well employed, of great good in our profession—and too determined (for such resolutions are always, in some degree, a false result of reasoning powers) to be put from his purpose either by a firm pressure of logical authority, or the subtle and more dangerous means of good-humoured or severe satire. My course was clearly to endeavour to affect the form of his own reasoning, and, if possible, to invest it with a character which might be recognised as true by the peculiar, and, no doubt, morbid perceptions he possessed of moral truth. I began by securing his eye, which I saw was, at times, inclined to wander, or take on that unmeaning, dull, glazed aspect which people in the act of brooding over intense sorrows—as if the optic nerves were thereby paralysed—so often exhibit.
"What train of mind are you in generally," said I, "when the wish to die, accompanied with the fortitude you have mentioned, comes upon you in its strongest form?"
"I first fall into a state of low spirits," said he, "and then nae effort I can use will tak my mind aff my dead wife. I think for whole hours—sometimes on the hills, sometimes in the house, and sometimes in my bed—of our courtship, our marriage, our happy life, and her miserable, painful, untimely death. This feeds my sorrow, which grows stronger, and descends deeper and deeper, till it reaches my brain, and I am sunk in the darkness o' despair. To escape frae thoughts o' past sorrows that are owre strong to be borne, I try to look forward to the future; but, alas! I see naething there but the pain o' livin for a number o' comfortless years o' auld age, draggin after me, a memory clogged wi' past ills, and naething afore me but a jail, and want, and lingerin death."