great fear in parents or others more advanced in years. And from that hour to the end of life they have never been able, with all possible care and anxiety, to free themselves from the most distressing fear on such occasions.

Casual associations, occasioned by some unfortunate circumstances in early life, have been the source of very great and irrepressible fears in respect to death. The fear of death is natural; and, perhaps we may say, is instinctive; but it does not ordinarily exist in such intensity as essentially to interrupt one's happiness. And yet, from time to time, we find unhappy exceptions to this statement. Miss Hamilton, in her Letters on Education, gives an interesting account of a lady who suffered exceedingly from such fears. She was a person of an original and inventive genius, of a sound judgment, and her powers of mind had received a careful cultivation. But all this availed nothing against the impressions which had been wrought into her mind from infancy. The first view which she had of death in infancy was accompanied with peculiar circumstances of terror; and the dreadful impression which was then made was heightened by the injudicious language of the nursery. Ever afterward, the mere mention or idea of death was attended with great suffering; so much so, that it was necessary, by means of every possible precaution, to keep her in ignorance of her actual danger when she was sick; nor was it permitted, at any time, to mention instances of death in her presence. So that the estimable writer of this statement asserts, that she

often suffered more from the apprehension than she could have suffered from the most agonizing torture that ever attended the hour of dissolution.*

§ 230. Casual Associations in respect to persons.

That the Affections may be more or less disordered by means of casual associations, is further evident from what we notice in the intercourse of individuals with each other. Men sometimes form such an aversion to others, or associate with them such sentiments of dread, that the connexion of the persons and the feelings becomes permanent and unconquerable. It has sometimes been the case, that a man of distinguished talents has been defeated and prostrated by another, in an argument, perhaps, on some public occasion; and although he harbours no resentment against his opponent, and has no sense of inferiority, yet he never afterward meets him in company without experiencing a very sensible degree of uneasiness and suffering.

Persons have sometimes been ill-treated by others; and this occasionally forms the basis of an invincible association, either of aversion or of dread. The poet Cowper, in early life, suffered in this way. A boy of a cruel temper, his superior in age, made him the object of long-continued ill-treatment and persecution. "This boy" (he remarks) "had impressed such a dread of his figure upon my mind, that I well remember being afraid to lift my eyes upon him higher than his knees; and that I knew him by his shoebuckles better than by any other part of his dress."

* Elementary Principles of Education Letter III.

An individual was once perfectly cured of madness by a very harsh and offensive operation. During all his life after, he acknowledged, with the most sincere gratitude, that he could not have received a greater benefit; and still he was utterly unable to bear the sight of the operator, it suggested so strongly the dreadful suffering which he underwent.*

Some men have an exceeding and unaccountable aversion to the mere features and countenance of another, and cannot bear to be looked upon by them. A statement is somewhere given of a person of a noble family, who was not able to bear that an old woman should look upon him. Certain persons, in a season of merriment, which is not always wisely directed towards these humbling infirmities of our nature, succeeded in suddenly and unexpectedly introducing him into the presence of one such, but the shock to his feelings was so great as to terminate in his death.

§ 231. Casual Association in connexion with objects and places.

The mental operations, in consequence of strong casual associations, may be perplexed in their action. in connexion with particular places and objects. "Some persons" (says Dr. Conolly, in reference to this subject) "are mad and unmanageable at home, and sane abroad. We read in Aretæus of a carpenter who was very rational in his workshop, but who could not turn his steps towards the Forum without beginning to groan, to shrug his shoulders, * Locke's Essay, book ii., ch. xxxii,

and to bemoan himself. Dr. Rush relates an instance of a preacher in America, who was mad among his parishioners except in the pulpit, where he conducted himself with great ability; and he also speaks of a judge who was very lunatic in mixed society, but sagacious on the bench."

"I have known patients" (says the same writer in another place) "in whom there was a tendency to mania, complain of the difficulty they found in guarding against dislike, not only of particular individuals, but of particular parts of a room, or of the house, or of particular articles of furniture or dress; those momentary feelings of uneasiness or antipathy to which all are subject, becoming in them aggravated or prolonged."* In connexion with the facts just stated, he mentions the case of an individual who could not bear the sight of white stockings; and of a certain Russian general who entertained a singular antipathy to mirrors; so much so, that the Empress Catharine always took care to give him audience in a room without any.

§ 232. Of Casual Association in connexion with particular days.

The same marked tendencies of mind may sometimes be discovered in connexion with particular days or other periods of time. Pinel mentions a lady who fancied that Friday was a day of ill omen and ill luck. "She at length carried this notion so far, that she would not leave her room on that day. If the month began on a Friday, it rendered her ex

* Conolly on Insanity, London ed., p. 98, 218.

tremely fearful and miserable for several days. By degrees, Thursday, being the eve of Friday, excited similar alarms. If ever she heard either of those days named in company, she immediately turned pale, and was confused in her manner and conversation, as if she had been visited by some fatal misfortune.'

Statements, much to the same effect, have been made of an individual no less distinguished than Lord Byron. From some circumstance or other, he became deeply impressed with the belief that Friday was destined to be, in relation to himself, an unlucky or ill-omened day. This was not a mere transitory feeling, which was under the control of his philosophy, but was deeply seated and operative. And, with his characteristic frankness, he did not hesitate to declare, or, rather, he took no pains to conceal, that his mind was actually under the despotism of this strange influence.†

We will subjoin here, as bearing some affinity to the cases which might properly be arranged under this head, an instance mentioned in the Encyclopædia Americana, by the author of the article on Memory. The statement is as follows: "How strange are the associations of ideas which often take place in spite of us. Every one must have experienced such. The writer recollects a melancholy instance in the case of an insane boy in an hospital, whose derangement was referred to an irreverent association with the name of God, which occurred to him

*Treatise on Insanity, p. 140.

+ Moore's Life of Byron, vol. ii., p. 458.