The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1849-04-26

IremQut8
There are two facts mentioned in Col. Fremonts
letters, which illustrate some of the laws OF mel,'"i
action not often observed; and yet, the opserVa'on
of them might lead to important pracncai resui's'
The facts to which we allude are contained In Inc
following sentsnoes
"You remember the volumes of Blackstone's
Commentaries which l took from your Iatner
library when we were overlooking 1t at our friend
Brant's. They made my Christmas amusements.
i read them to pass the tlme, anu 10 XIII Tue con-
seriousness of my situation
: The other passage describes his employment at
Taos, after the danger was over:
"Now am seated by a comfortable fire, alone
pursuing my own Notwithstanding to you in the
certainty of reaching yOu-a French volume OF
Balzac on the table-a colored print of the landing
of Columbus before me-listening in safety to the
raging storm without"
In the midst of trial and danger he flies to the
study GA hard and abstract science, in order to
divert his mind from his position and prospects;
with ease and comfort and safety around him, he
employs his Imagination with French novel, or
with print of that great event, peculiarly attrac
tive to exploring travellers and geographical dis
coverers. These facts are full of interest to the
physician who wishes " to minister to a mind
diseased
1t is often the case that friends and medical men
attempt to divert the mind of one suffering from
intense anxiety or profound grief, by engaging the
attention in subject that pleases the fancy or
attracts the Imagination This may do when the
anxiety is only ordinary, and the grief moderate
for then the soul is not much absorbed by passion
to forbid the exercise of the imaginative facul
ties. But when the anxiety has reached that painful
intensity which makes the heart almost cease beat
and pasies if it does not entirely destroy the intel
lect-when the grief is of such power and strength
that the world appears withered and the universe
darkened-some other remedy, more violent than
those which are addressed to the imagination, must
be used. Then recourse must be had to those
studies pursuits which severely task the intellect
and force the mind into action almost against its
will. Hence, when stricken by the sharp agony
that pierces instead of bruising when over
whelmed by the anguish that annihilates every
feeling but one-we fly for relief not to the poets
that charm or the novelists that enliven; but
punging into the difficulties of science, that drag
the intellect into the regions of abstract thought,
we may possibly escape, by such means, the pangs
which rend the heart in twain and devour the mind
that permits itself to dwell upon them. 1t is when
the passions are calm, or only gently excited, that
poetry pleases. The soft melancholy or the gay
wit of the poet may then captivate; but such
things pass unheeded when the great griefs of ex-
istence overtake us.
To men of active pursuits and unaccustOmed to
study, there other remedies for calming the in
tenser feelings. When the strong soul suffers, it
never spends the time in idle whining or complaint;
and we see men of powerful passions, when over
taken by great suffering, throw themselves with
tenfold ardor into the busiest and most exciting
scenes around them. In the intensity of mental
action they seek to drown the cries of the agonized
soul. By the efforts they make to keep the mind
employed you may perceive and measure the
strength of their emotions. The pangs of passion
are seen only in the spasms of the intellect.
The facts mentioned in Col. Fremont's letter
have led us to say thus much on a subject that
deserves the profoundest attention of the inquring
ncyoho1ooiSt and n1iIoSnphicaI phusican