Early in the year 1852, I received a letter, of which the following, with very slight needful alterations, is an extract. It was written from the interior of Massachusetts.
"About three months ago, I took a long journey by stage-coach, which brought on, as I think, an internal inflammation. Since that time I have taken very little medicine. Please tell me whether it is right for me to bathe daily in, and drink freely of, cold water; and whether it is safe to make cold applications to the parts affected.
"I take as much exercise as I can without producing irritation. I do not, by any means, indulge in the food which my appetite craves.
"I am twenty-six years of age; was married and left a widow, while young and very ignorant, under circumstances the most deeply painful. I have a strong desire to get well if I can; though if I must give up the thought I am willing to die.
"I should be very glad to see you, if you will take the trouble to come and see me. I should have made an effort to consult you, in person, before now, if I could have safely taken the journey."
At the time of receiving this letter I was travelling in a distant State, and, as an immediate visit was wellnigh impracticable, I wrote her, requesting such farther information as might enable me to give her a few general directions, promising to see her on my return in the spring. In reply to my inquiries, I received what follows:—
"I have been, from childhood, afflicted with bunches in the throat. There is no consumptive tendency on either my father's or my mother's side; but I come, by the maternal side, from a king's evil[I] family. I am an ardent, impulsive creature, possessing a nervous, sanguine temperament; naturally cheerful and agreeable, but rendered, by sickness, irritable, capricious, and melancholic. I fear consumption so much, that were I convinced it was fully fastened upon me, I might be tempted, unless restrained by a strong moral influence, to commit a crime which might not be forgiven.
"I have great weakness in the throat, and soreness in the chest, with a dull pain between the shoulders. My appetite is extraordinary;—I think it has increased since I have dieted. My flesh is stationary. I gain a few pounds, and then commit some wild freak and lose it. I am unaccountable to myself. I think, sir, that my mental disturbances impair my health.
"I anticipate much pleasure from seeing you; for I see, by your letter, you understand me. I have always been thought inexplicable. I feel a universal languor. I am, at times, unconscious. I feel dead to all things; there seems a loss of all vitality; and sometimes there is a sense of suffocation. All these feelings are extreme, because I am, by my nature, so sensitive. I met the other day with a slight from a friend, a young lady, which caused grief so excessive that I have ever since been suffering from influenza."
These lengthy extracts may not be very interesting to the general reader, except so far as they reveal to him some of the internal cogitations of a soul borne down with a load of suffering, which almost drove her to suicide. "Who hath woe,"—as Solomon says, with respect to a very different description of human character,—if not this poor widow?