The Washington times., 1923-02-11
Psychologist Ascribes Marie
BIoomfieId's Suicide to a
Hidden Self and Morbidity.
DESIRED "ETERNAL LIFE"
Preoccupation With Death Is
Common to Numerous Ia
Tented Persons, He Asserts

30 much In love with the thought
of death that she took her life.
LETTER ONLY CLUE.
Eighteen, an honor student at
Barnard College, with no unhappy
love motive to darken existence,
with no apparent worries to burden
her, this girl left no clue to her
self-destruction except a letter to
Mrs. Bruce Cummings, No. ! Earl
Terrace, London. Mrs. Cummings
is the widow of w. N. P. Barbel-
lion, English scientist and writer.
whose real name was Bruce Fred
erick Cummings.
THE Journal of a Disappointed
Man" is the book by which that
author is best known. Its alter
mating currents of beauty, philos-
ophy and predominating despair
because of approaching death are
believed to have so affected Marie
: Bloomfield that she sought the
|. fate that Berbillion himself could
not avoid because Of illness.
This is my last letter." Marie
Bloomfield wrote Barbellion' s
widow, land 1 must tell you again
how much Barbellfon has affected
my life. I wish 1 could have been
worthier of what he was. You
above all people will understand
what l mean. Please do not be
sad about me, your unknown
friend. 1 have been very happy,
and am not unhappy now"
DIR. STRAGNELL'S VIEW.
But can anyone be affected" by
another's love of death? Did the
dead Barbellion by means of the
journal he left sway living girl
to follow him beyond the grave?
DR.. Gregory Stragnell, eminent psy-
chologist and editor of the New
York Medical Journal, SCOTS at the
idea.
''Some can be affected some can
not. That Is fixed. The business
about being affected by a certain
book depends on who Is reading it,
1.-The person who wants death is
someone who must get away from
life. We encounter that morbid
state in people who find difficulty
in adjusting themselves to their
surroundings. As far as we can
see. Marie Bloomfield was making
progress in her surroundings, but
her final act implies that there was
something buried within her, a
hidden self that she couldn't ad-
just to reality. She had a serious
inner conflict. She was tied to
this woman she wrote to-she was
at just the age when girls form
morbid attachments for women
teachers and girl friends This
One she couldn't understand, COM
mon enough at her age.
CRAVING TO DIE.
And back of all that, I am in
clined to believe, though / do not
know the facts about it, that the
girls father is dead, and that she
wanted to join him. In such cases
there is an unconscious craving to
die.
81 want to stress this about her
mental attitude. We find all sorts
Of mental states with a desire for
death. because it means to them
eternal life.
I'VE find a great deal of pre-
occupation with death among talent
ed peOple-they can't meet life be-
cause of inner conflicts that are so
strong. And they are talented be-
cause of these conflicts. The tai.
ented person is always a neurOtic.
In this case, adementia praecOx
pulSlOn neurOSiS.'"
GLOATED OVER DEATH.
Pope wrote Of the mind that well
comes death and calmly passed
away. Baudelaire, in his "Fleurs de
Nal, gloats in ecstatic fashion
over death and its most unpleasant
aspects. In the tragedy of Romeo
and Juliet each of the young lovers
finds life insupportable when the
other is believed to be dead, and so
meets death gladly
"One would have to have been
intimate with all aspects Of this
unfortunate girls thought &C
tually to know" continued DR..
Stragnell. But it is plain that
she had mental difficulties of which
only careful study of her inner
life could reveal anything definite.
AS far as death cults are con-
cerned, by which we can indicate
people who are devoted TO the idea
OF death as great boon, there
are the Far East religions, with
the idea of death being rebirth
Thus the death-lover does not seek
death, but brand-new life. We can
scarcely appreciate what it holds
out to them.
Now to come back to the case
at hand, the suicide of Marie
Bloomfield, we cannot say Rar.
belliOn's journal affected her.
1T was simply an instance of
the seed falling i'm susceptible
place. She would have got the
idea somewhere. 1t was a case of
kindred spirit looking for re-en.
fOrcement."
BARBEI.LION'S THEORIES.
In THE Journal of a Disappoint.
ed Man." Barbellion wrote in
quotations:
Life is coquetry with death
mat wearies me, too sure Of the
amour"
From out his own strange self
revelations he sets down:
L sit in the theater of my own
HE, and watch the drama of my
own history proceeding to it's close
Pray God the curtain falls at the
right moment lest the play drag or
into some long and tedious anti
climax.
I'VE all like to dramatic our
selves. Byron was dramatizing him