corner of it
crowded with the most horrid images imagination can create, this kind
speechless goddess of a maid, Forgetfulness, is following us night
and day with her opium wand, and gently touching first one, and then
another, benumbs them into rest, and at last glides them away with the
silence of a departing shadow. It is thus the tortured mind is restored
to the calm condition of ease, and fitted for happiness.

How dismal must the picture of life appear to the mind in that dreadful
moment when it resolves on darkness, and to die! One can scarcely
believe such a choice was possible. Yet how many of the young and
beautiful, timid in every thing else, and formed for delight, have shut
their eyes upon the world, and made the waters their sepulchral bed! Ah,
would they in that crisis, when life and death are before them, and
each within their reach, would they but think, or try to think, that
Forgetfulness will come to their relief, and lull them into ease, they
could stay their hand, and lay hold of life. But there is a necromancy
in wretchedness that entombs the mind, and increases the misery, by
shutting out every ray of light and hope. It makes the wretched
falsely believe they will be wretched ever. It is the most fatal of all
dangerous delusions; and it is only when this necromantic night-mare of
the mind begins to vanish, by being resisted, that it is discovered to
be but a tyrannic spectre. All grief, like all things else, will yield
to the obliterating power of time. While despair is preying on the mind,
time and its effects are preying on despair; and certain it is, the
dismal vision will fade away, and Forgetfulness, with her sister Ease,
will change the scene. Then let not the wretched be rash, but wait,
painful as the struggle may be, the arrival of Forgetfulness; for it
will certainly arrive.

I have twice been present at the scene of attempted suicide. The one
a love-distracted girl in England, the other of a patriotic friend in
France; and as the circumstances of each are strongly pictured in my
memory, I will relate them to you. They will in some measure corroborate
what I have said of Forgetfulness.

About the year 1766, I was in Lincolnshire, in England, and on a visit
at the house of a widow lady, Mrs. E____, at a small village in the fens
of that county. It was in summer; and one evening after supper, Mrs.
E____ and myself went to take a turn in the garden. It was about eleven
o'clock, and to av