115

CHAPTER VI. - SUICIDE FROM FASCINATION.

Singular motives for committing suicide -- A man who delighted in torturing himself -- A dangerous experiment -- Pleasures of carnage -- Disposition to leap from precipices -- Lord Byron’s allusion to the influence of fascination -- Miss Moyes and the Monument -- A man who could not trust himself with a razor -- Esquirol’s opinion of such cases -- Danger of ascending elevated places.

How strange, extraordinary, and inexplicable are the motives which often lead to the commission of suicide! Many have been induced to rush into the arms of death in order to avoid the pain which they fancy accompanies dissolution. “Hic, rogo, non furor est, ne moriare mori?” Others have been apparently led to the perpetration of the crime by a desire to ascertain what sensations attended the act of dying; whilst some have been influenced by a feeling of fascination, and have stated that they experienced ecstatic delight at the idea of self-immolation.

The case of a man is recorded who felt the most exquisite delight in torturing himself. He had often expressed a wish to be hanged, from the notion that this Newgate mode of terminating life must give rise to sensations of great pleasure. The idea occurred to him one day of trying the experiment. He procured a piece of cord, attached it to the ceiling, and suspended himself from it; fortunately for the poor infatuated man, the servant entered the room a few minutes afterwards,116 and cut him down. Life was not extinct. The man expressed that he felt, during the few moments that he was hanging, a thrilling delight, which no language that he could use could convey anything like an adequate expression of. There was no doubt that this man laboured under an abnormal condition of the mind, which, if not amounting to insanity, certainly approached very nearly the confines of that disease.41

A woman was admitted some years back into one of our metropolitan hospitals who had a propensity to cut her person with every sharp instrument that she could procure. It was not her intention to kill herself; and when reasoned with on the folly of her actions, she observed that she was impelled by no other motive than the fascinating pleasure she experienced whenever she succeeded in drawing blood.

A lady, a passenger on board of a ship bound for the East Indies, was frequently heard to express a wish to know what feeling a person experienced in the act of being drowned. 117She fancied the sensations must be of a pleasurable character. Her fellow-passengers laughed at her whenever she alluded to the matter. Having introduced the subject again during dinner, she observed, “Well, I intend to try the experiment to-morrow morning.” The threat only excited the merriment of those who heard it. In the morning, whilst the passengers were on deck, the lady plunged into the sea, to the astonishment of everybody. Luckily for her, the ship was becalmed, and her life was saved.

An extraordinary young man, who lived at Paris, and who was passionately fond of mechanics, shut himself up one evening in his apartment, and bound not only his chest and stomach, but also his arms, legs, and thighs, with ropes full of knots, the ends of which he fastened to hooks in the wall. After having passed a considerable part of the night in this situation, he wished to disengage himself, but attempted it in vain. Some neighbouring females, who were up, heard his cries, and, calling for assistance, they forced open the door of his room, when they found him swinging in the air, with only one arm extricated. He was immediately carried to the lieutenant-general of the police for examination, when he declared that he had often put similar trials into execution, as he experienced indescribable pleasure in them. He confessed that at first he felt pain, but that after the cords became tight to a certain degree, he was soon rewarded by the most exquisite sensations of pleasure.42

“As the chill dews of evening were surrounding our bivouac,” says the author of the “Recollections of the Peninsula,” “a staff officer, with a courier, came galloping into it, and alighted at the quarters of our general. It was soon known amongst us that a severe and sanguinary action had been fought by our brother soldiers at Talavera. Disjointed rumours spoke of a dear-bought field, a heavy loss, and a subsequent retreat. I well remember how we all gathered round our fires to listen, to conjecture, and to 118talk about this glorious, but bloody event. We regretted that we had borne no share in the honours of such a day; and we talked with an undefined pleasure about the carnage. Yes! strange as it may appear, soldiers, and not they alone, talk of the danger of battle fields with a sensation which partakes of pleasure.”

A watchmaker of Aberdeen, who had been looking over the precipices of Loch-na-Gair, suddenly felt a desire to precipitate himself from the height, and having first taken a step or two back for the purpose, he flung himself off.

A gentleman travelling through Switzerland, with his wife, came to an eminence commanding an extensive and beautiful view of the surrounding country. He went, accompanied by his wife, to the edge of a mountainous cliff, and, turning round to his lady, he observed -- “I have lived long enough!” and in a moment threw himself down the precipice.

It was a notion of this kind which induced Lord Byron to observe that he believed no man ever took a razor into his hand who did not at the same time think how easily he might sever the silver cord of life. The noble poet evidently alludes, in the following stanzas, to the strange and unaccountable influence of fascination in exciting the mind to commit suicide: --

“A sleep without dreams, after a rough day
Of toil, is what we covet most, and yet
How clay shrinks back from more quiescent clay!
The very suicide that pays his debts
At once, without instalments, (an old way
Of paying debts, which creditors regret,)
Lets out impatiently his rushing breath,
Less from disgust of life than dread of death.

’Tis round him, near him, there, everywhere;
And there’s a courage which grows out of fear,
Perhaps of all most desperate, which will dare
The worst to know it: -- when the mountains rear
Their peaks beneath your human foot, and there
You look down o’er the precipice, and drear
The gulf of rock yawns, -- you can’t gaze a minute
Without an awful wish to plunge within it!

119
’Tis true, you don’t -- but, pale and struck with terror,
Retire: but look into your past impression!
And you will find, though shuddering at the mirror
Of your own thoughts, in all their self-confession,
The lurking bias, be it truth or error,
To the unknown; a secret prepossession,
To plunge with all your fears -- but where? You know not,
And that’s the reason why you do -- or do not.”

A gentleman with whom we are acquainted, informed us that, a few days after Miss Moyes had thrown herself from the Monument, a friend of his had the curiosity to visit the spot, and on looking down the awful height from which this poor unfortunate girl had precipitated herself, he felt suddenly an attack of giddiness, which was succeeded in a moment by one of the most pleasurable sensations he had ever experienced, accompanied with a desire to jump off. He was not influenced, apparently, by any other motive than that of a wish to gratify a feeling of ecstasy which for a minute suspended all the operations of the mind. A gentleman who was by him asked him a question with reference to the height of the Monument, and this circumstance recalling him to the exercise of his reasoning faculties, he immediately left the spot, shuddering at the recollection of the idea which had momentarily flashed across his mind.

The case is related of a man who had this feeling so strongly manifested that he never dared trust himself with a razor. He was not devoid of religious feeling, and was most happy in his domestic relations. On occasions which required the exercise of moral resolution, he was never found wanting. He declared his life would not be safe for a day if he were permitted to shave himself. Such instances are by no means uncommon, and require much ingenuity to account satisfactorily for them, unless they be referred to the effect of fascination.

Andral observes, “that there are many men perfectly rational, and completely undisturbed by care or pain, who,120 singular to state, have been suddenly seized by a headlong, groundless inclination to destroy themselves. There are hundreds who cannot approach the brink of a cliff, or ascend a lofty tower, without experiencing an almost invincible desire to precipitate themselves to the bottom, from which fate they only save themselves by an instantaneous effort to retire from the temptation. I knew a gentleman who, while shaving himself one day, alone, was three times so vehemently urged to plunge the razor into his throat, that he was at length compelled to throw the instrument from him, in absolute horror and dismay. In rational men, however, these trying and dangerous moments are but of very short duration.”

A sailor informed us that he had often, when at the top of the mast, felt disposed to precipitate himself from the giddy eminence, influenced by no other motive than that of pleasure.

In such cases, what course is the medical man to pursue? It is difficult to give any instructions for the treatment of such cases of mental idiosyncrasy. Persons who are subject to feelings of this character should be advised to avoid ascending elevated places.