Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1860-06-02
GERRIT SMITHS ACCOUNT OF HIS IN.
SANITY.
EXTRACT PROM LETTER TO TnE rRINcIPiA.

EXTRACT PROM A LETTER TO THE FRlHcIPIA.
Forgetting that human powers have limits,
forgot to think that could not do all that / wish
ed to do. Bot In a world whore :here is so much
to do that few are found willing to do, it is not
always easy to resist the temptation to overao.
FOR dozen years Before tho last had at tines
suffered from dyspepsia, though by no means as
severely had many persons Of my acquaintance.
Ny suffering was mainly in the quick and strong
sympathy Of my head with my dyspeptic e,oth aelf.
Vertigo and other most uncomfortable seusati0hs
now as if my head were made Of lead, and now
as if It we're made Of eork-wcr among the pic
ducts Of this sympathy. Never did / suffer So
much 10 this wise as when l went to Congress.
But the dyspepsia, which began in the
fell Of 1855 and continued year, was attended
by none of these sensdtiohs and therefore by nonS
Of the admonitions involved in them. Palpitation
Of the henrt of which had hitherto experienced
nothing was its inceseant companion and chief
signal, My head felt we'll and my brain worked
easy. DR.. Gray, the Superintendent tof the A.y.
um believes that even in the FIRST half of the year
1855 had come into that atagG or character sf
insanity called 'exaltation of the mind | never
read, studied nor wrote with more pleasure. l
boastod that I could do more than at the age Of
forty. This being the condition of my brsif,t is
not at all strange that, although as my nurse be-
leyes, slept but three hours a night during nost
Of that year. Cess than an average Of one hour
night during the last three weeks before l was
removed to the Asylum it should not occur ~
me that SO serious injury as the loss of my
reason would be the penalty for continuing the
visionary use Of my brain. Why this dys'
pepsia of 1858 and 1859 affected ray heart, and
produced no uncomfortable sensations in my head.
l am not capable Of explaining.
"A false alarm, one morning, whilst it did but
disquiet the other members Of n!y family, qui,S
overcamo me. The news, few weeks after, OF
tho death o! my old and dear friend, John Brown,
and his two sons, was a great shock to ME: IL
contributed not little to hasten my condition to
its crisis. Cnly three weeks after, l went down
under troop oHhallucinations. My family were
reduced to poverty. They we're cast of by their
friends aud the world. ThOse who had put thSiF
property lnto my hands had lost it. was bound
in honor and justice to so to Virginia and stand
by and suffer with my unfortunate friend. Indeed
it was only from believing that was on my way
to Virginia that went 80 willingly to Utica. The
idea, however say my family, and my own memo-
ry says il also, which most haunted and distressed
me- was that my friends and relatives IN the South
belieyed that had plotted their murder. No emo
now doubts that got 1t from the terrible chareeu
brought against me in the manifesto of the New
York Democratic Vigilaut Association. For is
turns cut, though of course have no distinct rec
objection of it, that continued until within very
few days of my going to the Asylum, to look over
the newspapers
! Mr.. Smith goes on to chow that the imihOdidtS
cause Of his insanity was the attack of the Figi'
lant Committee above mentioned