Few persons have given a more striking example of this passion than the Abbé de Rancé, when first touched with remorse for the enormity of his past life, and before the disturbed state of his mind had settled into that turn for religious seclusion and mortification which produced the appalling austerities of La Trappe. “To a state of frantic despair,” says Don Lancelot, in his letter to La Mère Angelique of Port Royal, “succeeded a black melancholy. He sent away all his friends, and shut himself up in his mansion at Veret, where he would not see a creature. His whole soul, nay, even his bodily wants, seemed wholly absorbed in a deep and settled gloom. Shut up in a single room, he even forgot to eat and drink; and when the servant reminded him that it was bed-time, he started as from a deep reverie, and seemed unconscious that it was not still morning. When he was better, he would often wander in the woods for the entire day, wholly regardless of the weather. A faithful servant, who sometimes followed him by stealth, often watched him standing for hours together in one place, the snow and the rain beating on his head, whilst he, unconscious of his position, was wholly absorbed in painful recollections. Then, at the fall of a leaf, or the noise of the deer, he would awake as from a slumber, and, wringing his hands, hasten to bury himself in a thicker part of the wood, or else throw himself prostrate, with his face in the snow, and groan bitterly.”[31] How many commit suicide from what is termed a _blind impulse_! They fancy that an internal voice tells them to kill themselves; and considering it impossible to resist what they term a destiny, they do so. A gentleman, a merchant of the city of London, had been exposed to great mental perturbation; his nervous system had received a severe shock. He suffered extremely from a dread of going mad. As he was walking home one afternoon, he heard a voice say, “Kill thyself!” “Commit suicide!” and from that moment he could not banish the idea from his mind. Two or three times he was on the eve of obeying the mandate of this internal voice; but he fortunately possessed sufficient resolution to resist the temptation. In this state of mind he consulted a physician, who ordered him to be cupped in the neighbourhood of the head. His bowels were attended to, and he was recommended to visit some friends in the north of Scotland, and to banish from his mind all ideas connected with business. He followed the advice of his judicious physician, and in a short time he completely recovered.