Sick body sick brain.pdf

8/10/2019 Sick body sick brain.pdf

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SICK BODY, S ICK BR. i IN.

99

You have canceled my m'urnful remembrance;

your brave boy has given me back my son from

the hungry maw of the sea. Le t fifteen year

agone be forgotten."

Clasped hands. A proud head sunk upon a

heav ing breast. A bronzed face bright with

heaven ly compassion. De ep and hushed, and

awfuUer than all, that sense of a tranquil Pres

ence shadowing the quite air.

" Come here, May. Your face is pale, my

girl; i t 's grieved me long. Stand by me,

Gei

vayse; I've mourned for the fever in your eye,

and the whiteness of your cheek, but the sor

row

's

passing. Mr. Phillips, I know your sperit's

will; yo' can bless this night for your boy and

my daughter. Their hearts hev ben married

for long."

Silently the pale man took his son's hand,

and laid it in the little palm that rested on the

Cap tain's brown fingers. T he other hand lay

upon his son's head, and his trembling lips were

moving in prayer. Th e old seaman's eyes were

glistening. But May and Gerva yse The erect

and gallant figure bore a head whose eyes were

filled with flashing star-fire, and the carmine of

youth had leaped up radiantly to his cheeks

from the rich, red blood of hea rt and ve in Th e

fair face of May had a faint stain of spiritual

crimson in its halo of golden ha ir, which the

loveliest tint of the light-red rose never had,

and,.in the brilliant light of the room, her grace

ful figure in its sable robe, stood like the spirit

of mild Lov e Soft, rich, mellow words of old

Jean Paulyou came like music to my memory

the n "T w o pure heavens had opened in two

pure hearts, and there was nothing in them but

love, peace, and joy, and the little tear-drop of

earth that hangs upon all our flowers."

" O, it 's awful " ejaculated Aunt Huldah, with

her apron over her mob-capped h ea d; " it 's par-

fictly consum in'. I shall die, as I hope to live

and be saved. ' Hos anna "

No one heard this singulaaMJbuUition of joy

but I, who stood near the olcHady, and chuck

led in secret.

"F ait h, Captain," I remarked, "if you had

any more Mays to give away, I'd be urging my

claim As it is, I mus t resign myself to the

doom of a bachelor."

" A h Mr. Charley," said Gerv-ayse, "you

look like it W hose eyes chaiTned your flutter

ing fancy one day last summer at Swampscot ?

Who was it you asked after so often in 15oston

a couple of months since ?"

This was a retort with a vengea nce. I was

completely unmasked, and blushed like a fool.

" Mr. Seym our," said Mr. P hillips, " will be

well received at Swampscot, if he will come.

I shall be grateful to him if he always speaks

his mind as freely to Gervayse as he did to me

last summer."

I succumbed, and went off to bring Mrs. Mar

tin down. She came. Always a quiet woma n,

she was speechless unde r strong emotion. She

only held her daughter to her heart , and wept.

We were all very happy.

A moment, and I am done. Mr. Phill ips

had risen to go, and Gervayse with him. One

carriage still stood at the doorthere was an

other at the hotel. Captain Martin gave hira

his hand . He graspe d it firmly, with a sad and

mild smile on his wan face.

" Good-night, Cap tain. I feel light at heart.

A strange feeling. Sir. I have not felt it since

boyhood. I have sinned . God be merciful to

me a sinner "

"Amen " said the Captain, solemnly; "to ns

all "

They were gone. An invisible shape seemed

to have passed with them, and taken away some

light from the slowly saddening room.

Five months after there was a gay bridal at

Cap tain Ma rtin's house. I stood gi-oomsman

to Gervayse. Clara was May's bridesmaid. He r

mystical brown eyes smiled so during the cere

mony, that I gi-ew dizzy, and shortly afterward,

at Swampscot, lost the bacheloric equipoi^.

There was another bridal a year afterward.

but not there.

Not the re Th e invisible Presence had dark

ened the house with its shadow, and it lay there

long. Cold and strange would have been the

festal glory on walls where the solemn and be

nignant Phantom, who comes but once to all ,

had left its icy brea th. A proud spirit, humbled

and broken, and purged, as I trust, from all the

sins and stains of earth, had gone home to God.

The wedding throng that met there in joy, and

gallant raiment, came again a month after in

sorrow and in funeral robes. Th e Apr il rains

were heavy upon land and sea when wo stood

by his tomb. An d when the mourners were all

gone, I still lingered in the place of sepulture,

and saw, with a solemn heart, among

the

brown

weather-stains upon the granite portal of the

vault, one which my sombre fancy fashioned to

the semblanc e of a worm. Yet, as I mused

upon the mournful symbol of our littleness and

mortality, I saw, with a feeling gliding over my

spirit like a soft rebuke, rising, in the s.ime

brown tracer}', from the body of the creature,

the faint and shadowy outline of two wings

Farewell .

S ICK BODY, S ICK BRAIN.

CCASIONAL ill lustrations of the supersti

tion of the middle .iges have led writers to

remark on the great prevalence of insanity,

caused in the good old times by the mix ture of

homble thoughts and lumps of diseased fancy

with the ideas common among the people. Of

the wretched position of unhappy lunatics, per

secuted, maimed, tortured, and burnt by neigh

bors and magistrates, who accepted as facts all

their delusions, and convicted them by the testi

mony of their own wild words, illustrations are

comm on. Bu t the region of superstition tha t

remains y et to be sketched is very rich in prod

uce of this kind. I do not mea n to pass into

that region now, because it was not by supersti

tion only, or only by that and the oppressire

forms of a debased church svstem, that th e m inds


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100 H A R P E R ' S N E W M O N T H L Y M A G A Z I N E .

of men were broken down, powerful agencies as

they both were. These moral pestilences acted

npon brains that had been first weakened by the

physical plagues to which bodies were subject.

W e are not free from such afflictions yet. W e

are at this hour shrinking from the breath of

cholera. It comes home to the poor. It comes

home to the minister of state. He may sacri

fice sanitary legislation to the first comer w ho

attem pts to sneer it down, and journ ey home to

find the grateful plague sitting in his own hall,

ready with the only than ks tha t it can offer. A t

this we sincerely grieve, and perhaps tremble;

but we know nothing of the terror of plague

as it was terrible in the old times of famine

among the poor, wrong living and bad housing

among the rich, of townships altogether drain-

less, of filth, ignorance, and horrible neglect.

The ravages made formerly in Europe by the

small-pox or measles, the dreadful spread of

leprosy, the devastation on the path of the black

death and the sweating sickness, have no par

allel in our day. Ex trem e as are the sufferings

of our poor in the hungry winter season, we

understand but faintly the intensity and extent

of the distress which the old poe t had often seen

who wrote

Short days, sharp days, long nights come on apace:

Ah, who shall hide us from the winter's face ?

Cold doth increase, the sickness will not cease,

And here we lie, God knows, with little ease.

From winter, plague and pestilence, good Lord,

deliver us

I particularly wish to show how in the good

old times men's bodies were wasted, and how

there was produced out of such wasting a weak

ening and wasting of their minds. W e can not

study rightly sickness of the mind without bring

ing sickness of the body into question . It is

necessary to begin with that.

The re was one disease called the black death,

the black plague, or the great mortali ty. Th e

most dreadful visitation of it was one that be

gan in China, spread over Asia, and in the

year thirteen hundred and forty-eight entered

Europe . Europe was then, however, not un

used to plagues. Six others had made them

selves famous during the preceding eight-and-

forty years. Th e black plague spread from

the south of Europe to the north, occupying

about three years in its passage. In two years

it had reached Sweden; in three years i t had

conquered Russia. Th e fatal influence came

among men ripe to receive it. Euro pe was full

of petty war; citizens were immured in cities,

in unwholesome houses overlooking filthy streets,

as in beleaguered fortresses; for robbers, if not

armies, occupied the roads beyond their gates;

husbandmen were starving feudal slaves; re

ligion was mainly supe rstition ; ignoranc e was

dense, and morals were debased; little control

was set upon the passions. To sucli men ca me

the pestilence, which was said to have slain

thirteen millions of Chinese, to have depopu

lated India, to have destroyed in Cairo fifteen

thousand lives a day. Those were exaggera ted

statements, but thev were credited, and terrified

the people. Certainly vessels with dead crews

drifted about in the Mediterranean, and brought

corruption and infection to the shores on which

they stranded.

In what spirit did the people, superstitious as

they were in those old times, meet the calamity?

Many committed suicide in frenzy; merchants

and rich men, seeking to divert th e wrath of

Heaven from themselves, carried their treasure

to the churches and the mona steries; where, if

the monks, fearing to receive infection with it,

shut their gates against any such offering, it was

desperately thrown to them over their walls.

Even sound men, corroded by anxiety, wandered

about livid as the dead. House s quitted by their

inhab itants tumbled to ruin. By plague and by

the flight of terrified inhabitants many thousand

villages were left absolutely empty, silent as the

woods and fields. Th e Pop e, in Avignon, was

forced, because all the churchyards were full,

to consecrate as a burial-place the river Rhone,

and assure to the faithful an interment, if not

in holy gi-ound, at least in holy Abater. How

the dead were carted out of towns for burial in

pits,

and how the teiTor of the people coined the

fancy that through indecent haste many were

hurried out and thrown into those pits while

living, every one knows; it was the incident

of plague at all times. Italy was reported to

have lost half its inhabitants. The V enetians

fled to the islands and forsook their city, Ipsing

three men in four; and in Padua, when the

plague ceased, two thirds of the inhabitants were

missing. This is the black death , which began

toward the close of the year thirteen hundred

and forty-eight to ravage Engl an d; and of which

Antony Wood says extravagantly, that, at the

close of it, scarcely a tenth part of the people

of that country remained living.

Churches were shunned as places of infection,

but enriched with mad donations and bequests;

what little instruction had before'bcen imparted

ceased; coveto|fc|Bss increased, and when health

returned me n w^ B amazed to observe how large

ly the proportion of lawyers to the rest of the

community had been augmented. So many sud

den deaths had begotten endless disputes about

inheritance. Brothers deserted broth ers; even

parents fled from their children, leaving them

to die untcnded. The sick were nursed, when

they were nursed at all, by grcedj' hirelings at

enormous charge. Th e wealthy lady, noble of

birth, trained in the best refinement of her time,

as pure and modest perhaps as she was beauti

ful, could sometimes hire no better nurse than

a street rufliian to minister to her in her morta)

sickness. It appea rs most probable that this pest

ilence, which historians often dismiss in a para

graph, destroyed a fourth part of the inhabitantj

of Euro pe. Th e curious fact follows, which ac

cords with one of the most mysterious of all thi

certain laws of nature, that tlie numbers of tht.

people wore in some degree replenished by .\

very marked increase in the frtiitfu iness of mar,

riago. Vv'o know how the poor, lodged in placet.

dangerous to life, surround themselves with lit.


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102

H A E P E K ' S N E W M O N T H L Y M A G A Z m E .

sicians of the present day. In its first years it

attacke d violently pe ople of all rank s, especially

those leading sedentary lives, and impelled them

to dance even to death sometimes, to dash their

brains out aga inst walls, or to plunge into rivers.

Eveiy one has hear d of a madne ss of this kind

that arose in Apulia, among people who had

been, or fancied that they had been bitten by a

ground spider, called the tarantula . Thos e

who were bitten were said to have become

melancholy, very open to the influence of music,

given to wild joyous fits of dancing, or to m iser

able fits of weeping, morbid longings, and fatal

paroxysm s either of laughte r or of sobs. At

the close of the fifteenth century the fear of

this malady had spread beyond Apu lia. Th e

poison of the tarantula, it was believed, could

only be worked off by those in whom it begot a

violent energy of dancingit passed out then

with the perspiration; but if any lingered in

tlie blood, the disorder became chronic or inter

mi t ten t; and the afflicted person would be liaUe

to suffering and melancholy, which, whenever

it reached a certain height, would be relieved

by dancing. Th e taran tati, or persons bitten

by the tarantula, had various whims, and they

also had violent preferences for and antipathies

to colors. Most of them were wild in love of

red, many were excited by green objects, and so

forth. The y could only dance to music, and to

the music of certain tunes which were called

tarantellas, and one man's tarantella would not

always suit anoth er. Some needed a quick

tune, others a melancholy measure, others a

suggestion of green fields in the music as well

as in the words that always went with it.

Nearly all tarantati required some reference to

water, were mad in longing for the sea, and

would be ecstatic at the sight of water in a

pan . Some even would dance with a cup of

wate r in the ir hand s, or plunge their he ads after

dancing in a tub of water, set for them, and

trimm ed with rushes . In the beginning of the

seventeenth century, the cure of the tarantati

was attempted on a grand scale. Bands of

musicians went among the villages, playing

tarantellas; and the women were so especially

interested in this way of bringing relief to the

afflicted, that the period of tarantella-playing

was called "t he women's l i t t le carnival." The

good creatures saved up their spare money to

pay for the dances, and deserted their household

duties to assist at them . One rich lady, Mita

Lupa, spent hov whole fortune on these works

of charity.

A direction was often given by this little car

nival to the thoughts of hysterical women. The y

sickened as it approached, danced, and were for

a season whole; but the tarantati included quite

as many men as wome n. Even the skeptic ceuld

not shake off the influence of general credulity.

Gianb atista Quinzato, Bishop of Eoligno, suffer

ed himself in bravado, to be bitten by a taran

tula; but, to the shame of his episcopal gravity,

he could obtain a cure only by dancing.

When bodies are ill-housed or ill-nourished.

or by late sickness or o ther cause depressed,

as most men's bodies were in the middle ages,

minds are apt to receive morbid impre ssions.

The examples just given show how rapidly across

such tinder the fire of a lunatic fancy spreads.

People abounded who were even glad to per

suade themselves that they were changed into

wolves every night, that they were witches, or

that they were possessed by demons.

About fifty years ago, a yovmg woman of

strong frame visited a friend in one of the Ber

lin hospitals. On ente ring a ward she fell down

in strong convulsion. Six female patients who

saw her became at once convulsed in tlie same

way; and, by degrees, eight others passed into the

same condition for four months; during which

time two of the nurses followed their example.

They were all between sixteen and twenty-five

years old.

Other madnesses of this kind will occur to

the minds of many readers. They are contem

porary illustrations, each on a small scale, of a

kind of mental disorder which was one of the

most universal of the sorrows of the middle ages.

Men were liable in masses to delusions so ab

surd, and so sincere, that it is impossible to ex

clude from a fair study of the social life of our

forefathers a constant reference to such unsound

conditions of their minds.

W H A T D O Y OU N G M E N M A R R Y ?

VERY important question this, and well

deserving of profound attention and a seri

ous answer. Truly, marriage is itself so serious

a matter, that it is a pity any one should for a

mom ent attemp t to view it as ought else. An d,

indeed, none but the most confirmed kind of

bachelors who know not "w ha t marriage

means "can ever do so.

Joke about rheumatism if you will; jest on

toothaches as you list; make merry upon the

subject of Chancsrj proceedings; be facetious

about your in c o d H ^ ^ ; but eschew levity when

writing, speakinfPPmnking about matrimony.

Of all serious subjects place this at the head.

But if to marry be so serious a business, the

question. Wha t do young men m arr) '? can not

be an unimportant one. Now, methinks, some

of my readersif I m ay be allowed to credit

myself with readershave already answered

the inquiry in their own minds, or at least have

concluded it to be one mightily easily answer

ed. Not so,fast, fair Sir or Ma dam. No, not

"wives,"

certainly; for while a man viay not

marry his grandmother, paternal or maternal,

nor yet some others of his relatives, he

can not

marry his wife, for being his wife, they are al

ready wedded, neither can he legally marry his

neighbor's wife. An d have but a little patience,

kind readei-, and you may find that you are just

as completely at a nonplus to answer the ques

tion, in some cases, as we are ourselves; and,

we assure you, cases have come \i'ithin the

range of our observation, in which we were

fairly puzzled to say, or to see, what a young

man marriedor what for.

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