The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1872-08-15
THE TERROR OF LIVING.
From the Milwaukee Jour. of CONNER

From the Milwaukee Jour. of Commerce
There is ever curious interest in the study of
the annals of insanity and suicide. The bounda-
ries between mental sanity and mental disease are
80 wavering that it is hardly possible to predl-
cate of any individual that he has been will be-
at all times sane. There is perhaps one who
has not at ONE time entertained horrible sus
picion of his state mind, who has not felt capa
bic of, or attempted to, the commission OF crimes
wilder than any of those that cast so deep and FIRE
quent shadows over the pages of our current lit
erature. There is, hence, always subtle bond Of
sympathy between the Wellregulated portions OF
society and the saddest Of castaways. Hence the
universal interest in the statistics of abnormal
crimes, and of self slaughter, that most abnor-
NAL OfaD crimes. Hence the irresistible fascina-
ton which gathers the gamins hooting at the
heels Of1he wandering simpleton and holds the
thoughtful visitor to windows overlooking the
Common gard of the insane asylum BY reason
Of this human sympathy, "Hamlet''is the most
popular of Shakespeares plays, and Hamlet's so
Hloquy although vulnerable to criticism from
every point of view, yet remains the common esti.
nation Of one Of the most moving and powerful
compositions of the English language. Doubtless
great student of human nature and master of art
in literature 10 represent this epoch, which comes
atone time or another in the experience of almost
every one when the mind sways and trembles in
its Trail tepement like the compass in a storm at
sea. TIE thought that Hamlet toyed with and
shrank from is the thought which the most of us
may have toyed with and shrunk from-and, it
may be hoped have put away fro m us forever
Tits the fend which, relentless and Inevitable
has purs Ged very many to their final destruction
1t has fastened upon some of the brightest minds
1t has bighed and eclipsed the lie of some of the
MOBILES and sweetest characters, IL the history of
Literature
In literature itself this theme forms an element
ofpower and Of Reyer-faiIing interest," We pause
before Victor Hugo's Rembrandt pictu re of Javert
the Paris detective, finging himself into the
Seine because he had been foiled in tracking a
fugitive "a piece of fiction the admirable be-
cause ii IS assuredIy founded On fact
Aboni year ago the community of Brooklyn
produce peculiar case of suicide in the person Of
little Coy who swallowed poison to end his life
in order TO see what was beyond"
In Philadelphia the other day, there occurred
remarkable suicide. young girl eighteen years
of age, the daughter of boiler-maker, had par
tial detect ofspeech. When excited she stammer-
ed SOM" hat This slight trouble weighed upon
her spirits and grew in her imaginati on until il
Oyershadowed all other considerations. Life even
became burden. Last Saturday evening as she
put her little sister to bed an6 kissed her good
night, she said: ''To-night my bed will be cooler
than yours, dear. It will be hundreds of wards
wide aud thousands Of yards long, 1 will not
come to wake you tomorrow morning, and YOU
need not come to wake me''
y The next morning her bed was cold indeed: for
she was found sleeping in the river
The incident is triAing enough in the rush;of the
world and of affairs. In the neighborhood of its
occurrence 1t was sen sation. At this distance
of space the practical judge of news would hardly
deem II more than an item. Yet $50 runs the
world away" Every day every community pro-
duces some such evidence of the instability OF
reason, Of the way in which life may be lightly
esteemed. With very many who may read this
account its pathos will derive an added tinge
from the reminiseence of some period or crisis
in their own experience when the terrors of death
seemed not half SO great that which Emerson
had called 1.-THE terrors of living"