His confinement had at first deeply affected his spirits, and
his melancholy increasing at the prospect of a long detention, terminated
in deranging his mind, and occasioned this last act of despair.--I never
hear of suicide without a compassion mingled with terror, for, perhaps,
simple pity is too light an emotion to be excited by an event which
reminds us, that we are susceptible of a degree of misery too great to be
borne--too strong for the efforts of instinct, reflection, and religion.
--I could moralize on the necessity of habitual patience, and the benefit
of preparing the mind for great evils by a philosophic endurance of
little ones; but I am at the Bicetre--the winds whistle round me--I am
beset by petty distresses, and we do not expatiate to advantage on
endurance while we have any thing to endure.--Seneca's contempt for the
things of this world was doubtless suggested in the palace of Nero. He
would not have treated the subject so well in disgrace and poverty. Do
not suppose I am affecting to be pleasant, for I write in the sober
sadness of conviction, that human fortitude is often no better than a
pompous theory, founded on self-love and self-deception.
I was surprized at meeting among our fellow-prisoners a number of Dutch
officers. I find they had been some time in the town on their parole,
and were sent here by Dumont, for refusing to permit their men to work on
the fortifications.
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