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250 " THOUGH THIS BE MADNESS ,
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
, • . „ Turned Abl Si Army X Months Poss...
hearing- that M . Adolphe Monod , the celebrated Protestant ministerwas consumptiveshe wrote to a friend a long letter , full
of feeling , " , in which she mentions , one of her own cousins having been re-established in health by a certain English Dr . W _~
( Williams ?) , famous for consumptive cures , and begs the lady to whom she addresses herself , to communicate with Madame Adolphe
Monod , and to urge her applying to Dr . W . Nothing can be more timely , more sensible , more clearly and persuasively expressed than
this letter . Yet this amiable , sensible woman , who sits in the atelier executing fine sewing and embroidery in the most delicate manner ,
believes that she is constantly receiving electric shocks , through the malicious agency of persons unknown , but who ought to be put
down by Government . She likewise is under the impression that her food and drink are poisoned , as by ratsbane ; and complains
bitterly about it , in terms as expressive as those she used in her more reasonable epistles : all her communications are written in a fine
close hand , covering not only the four pages , but several others besides . These are often filled with satirefrom which nobody
, _escajDes , neither physician , students , governor , steward , nor even the magistrate who from time to time inspects the asylum . After
touching up a conceited deputy-inspector in one of her letters , she suddenly observes" Something about him gave nie the notion that
he had been sent by , some friend of the D 's . " Now this family is one which has rendered Mdlle . Anna great service ; and who ,
having * had reason to complain of her conduct to them , have yet continued to show her kindness ; without ever being able to
dispossess her mind of its grudges against them . The same thing has occurred in respect to others who have endeavored to serve her ,
and have only received dislike and abuse in return . M . Trelat then alludes to the point of this case : that from her earliest youth , and
long before she entered the asylum as insane , she never was able to remain long in any one circle of peoplebecause she conceived
sus-, picions against them , and soon went from suspicion to abuse . Thus the weak point in the intellect could be seen on looking backivards .
It did not develop into patent insanity until Mdlle . Anna was . twenty-eight years old ; yet what an amount of mischief may not
such a character have accomplished while yet she remained abroad in the world ! Plow many people may she not have set by the ears
by entertaining and communicating her suspicions from one to the otherat a time when accusations more probable than that of "
ratsbane" , flowed from her tongue ! It adds not a little to the pain with which such a case is regarded , that this poor lady , naturally of
doubtful sanity , in spite of her undoubted possession of piety and intellectual iftsshould have been exposed to excessive labor in a
Parisian school g , , where she gave daily half-a-dozen lessons on the piano ; acted as butlerrang the bell for mealstasted every soup
and viand before it was , served , took the bread , from the baker and kept his accountexecuted commissions for the ils and parlor
, pup boarders ' and in addition practised six hours a day to perfect - herself _,
250 " Though This Be Madness ,
250 " THOUGH THIS BE MADNESS ,
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), June 1, 1862, page 250, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01061862/page/34/
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