From Under the Cloud; Or, Personal Reminiscences of Insanity

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1886 edition. Excerpt: ... chapter xiv. Oft in the stilly night, e'er slumber's Chain has bound me, Fond memory brings the light Of other days around me.--Tom Moore. After writing to my sister the letter of renunciation spoken of in a preceding chapter, I neither received nor wrote a letter until November of 1883. My sister having been in constant correspondence with Dr. Thomas, wrote to me by his advice, saying so many letters had been sent me without a word of reply, but that she felt now that surely I would send her a line, and that then she would write at length, of many changes, some of them very sad, that had transpired during my years of silence. Her letter touched me deeply. This, my youngest sister, and my favorite, was together with her husband, the only exceptions among my relatives who did not see me during the three years of my "peculiarities" before I was confined in the asylum, and I felt more kindly toward them, tbaD any others of my family. And too, they had both visited me since my incarceration, coming from their home in Pittsburg, Penn. But I had gotten so completely unaccustomed to writing, that I felt but little inclination to reply to her letter, until in answer to the doctor's question, " are you going to write to your sister?" I said, No! And he answered " Now! I am disappointed in you! If you could read the number of good letters I have read from that good sister about you, certainly you would send her, if no more, a line to relieve her of long waiting, and I have assurred her you would write." And so I wrote November 26, 1883: "I don't know if I am better or not; certainly there's a little pressure lifted some where, for I can cry now! Not as I used to, for days together, 'making myself and every body in the house miserable.' Tell...