Diary Written in the Provincial Lunatic Asylum | Page 5

I ventured to sit down
beside her. She was lying on her couch in a room off the dining-room;
she lay on her back knitting, talking in a rambling way: "Do you know
what kind of a place this is? Aren't you afraid I'll kill you? I wish I was
like you." I smoothed her hair with my hand as I would a child. I
thought, perhaps, she had done some great wrong. She said she had
killed her mother. Often before, I had stood beside her, for I looked at
her a number of times before I ventured to sit by her. I had no
recollection of seeing her when I first came, till I found her in this room.
I suppose she was so violent they shut her in here to keep her from
striking or injuring any one. I could not discover the cause of her
trouble, but I comforted her all I could, and she has always been
friendly with me since, and listened to my words as if I were her
mother. She has been here a long time. Last Friday--bathing day--two
young, strong nurses were trying to take her from her room to the
bath-room (I suppose she was unwilling to be washed, for I have
noticed when I saw her in that room on the couch, she was not clean as
she should be--her clothes did not have a good air about them). The
nurses were using force, and she struggled against it. They used the
means they often use; I suppose that is their surest method of
conquering the obstinate spirit that will rise up to defend itself in any
child or woman. She was made more violent by her hair being pulled;
one nurse had her hands, and the other caught her by her hair, which is
just long enough to hold by. They made her walk. I was walking near
them when I saw one seize her by the hair; she tried to bite her on the
arm. I started forward, and laid my hand on her arm, with--"Don't, my
poor child, don't do so; be gentle with her, girls, and she will go." She
looked at me, and her face softened; that angry spirit melted within her,
and they went on to the bath-room. Shortly after that I met her looking
fresh and nice; she was in Mrs. Mills' room, in her rocking-chair.
Sometimes I look in there to see if that chair is empty, to have a rock in
it myself. I think it better for her health to knit in the rocking-chair than
to lay down and knit or read either, so I leave her there. Perhaps she has
read too much and injured her brain; if so, I would not let her read so
much.
March 20.--Poor Mrs. Mills has served thirty-two years here, and has

become hardened as one will to any situation or surroundings. She is
too old a woman, and her temper has been too much tried. She is tidy,
and works well for so old a woman, but she is not fit for a nurse. If she
were a British soldier, and had served her country so long, she would
be entitled to a pension.
Poor Miss Short! Last week I saw her lying on the floor nearly under
the bed, her dress torn, her hair disheveled. How can her friends leave
her so long! Some ladies came to see her a short time ago, and as they
left the hall I heard her call them to take her with them. If they knew all
as I do, they would not leave her here another day.
There is a Miss Snow here from St. Stephens. I remember distinctly
when I first came, she raved all the time. I did not dare to look in her
bed-room.
I must write something of myself today. I can look back and see plainly
all my journey here. The day may come when I shall be laid away in
the grave, and my boys--the dear boys I have loved so well--will look
over my trunk and find this manuscript; they will then perhaps believe I
am not crazy. I know Dr. Steeves tells them I am a lunatic yet. They
will weep over this, as they think of the mother they have left here to
die among strangers. It would be happiness to die surrounded by my
friends, to be able to tell them they have only to live well that they may
die well. To be true to ourselves and to our fellows, is all the good we
need. That I have always striven to do, does now my spirit feed.
I have been so near the grave, the border land of heaven. I heard angels'