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The only irregularity of conduct indicating a dethronement of reason, was a propensity to pick her clothes to pieces. This appearance of restless uneasiness, would seek vent from the ends of her fingers by nervous twitches upon something tangible, which effort seemed to be an almost instinctive act of self-defence from the overflowings of her pent-up mental agonies.

I could not blame her any more than I could blame a drowning man for catching at a straw as a reliance of self-defence.

Although the drowning man's act is in itself an unreasonable act of self-dependence, yet we do not call it an insane act under his surrounding. So, although in reality, Mrs. Bridgman's acts of self-relief are not reasonable in themselves, yet under the anguish of her mental throes, she should be excused as innocent of an act really insane.

If her sufferings cannot be assuaged by judicious kind care, she should be allowed great latitude in seeking any way of relief her instincts might prompt.

She has been most wantonly and thoughtlessly punished, being innocent, so that she is almost raving, under this insult and abuse of her moral nature added to her physical sufferings.

I have heard her entreat Dr. McFarland to let her out of this place! his utter indifference to her cries only confirmed her in feeling that this is a place of hopeless torment, from which she can never escape. Nor can it be right under any circumstances, to keep a human being in such a state of involuntary suffering, or to add to this suffering state personal imprisonment.

She has been allowed to visit her friends several times, within ten years, and remains with them a few weeks or months, but the memory of the asylum so haunts her, that its fear and dread are inseparable from her existence.

This Institution should place an inseparable barrier to her entering it again; her friends ought to adopt her anew into the affections of their hearts, and make her feel sure that they will never again forsake, but cherish and love her as they would wish to be, in exchange of circumstances.

But from Dr. Tenny's account I fear they cherish no such intention, but like other alienated perverted kindred, will feel justified in placing her here again; thus ridding themselves of a burden upon their care and attention.

Rid of a burden! What can be more humiliating to a proud, noble nature than to feel that they are looked upon as burdens by their friends such as they are willing to resign knowingly into a state of hopeless, unmitigated sorrow.

Is there any spot in this great universe where human anguish is equal to what is experienced in Lunatic Asylums!

Are we not experiencing the sum of human wretchedness? Can a woman's sufferings be greater than are Mrs. Bridgman's?

To me she is the very personification of anguish. Oh, my heart has so ached for her that I sometimes feel that I would be willing to lay down my natural life to relieve her.

I did try to comfort her by imparting genuine sympathy in deeds of kindness, and she would sometimes say that she found some comfort in my room, but none anywhere else. I have often assured her that if ever I got a home where I could do as I pleased, I would like to adopt her into it most cheerfully as my sister, and she should find in me an unfailing friend.

I have studied into the cause of her disease of the nervous system, and so far as I can judge, it was caused by her disregarding the laws of her nature, as a woman, in working extra hard at the time she was unwell. She said she suffered so much pain at such times, that she sought relief by hard work, and this exertion being unnatural, only increased the evil she designed to remedy. Her temporary relief was purchased at the price of future sufferings. A chronic disease was the result, which has since manifested itself in untold mental agonies.

If women would have resolution enough to be quiet at such times as nature and reason both dictate, they would be relieved of a vast amount of suffering, which is inseparably connected with thus trifling with this law of our nature.

It is said that the Indian women who are so peculiarly exempt from female diseases, invariably rest one or two days at such times, and these are the only times that they lie in bed, by sickness -- in consequence of which they are almost as hardy as the men. To them, the curse of the fall seems almost annihilated.

If civilized women would only learn this lesson from their uncivilized sisters, they might hope to enjoy the same immunity from suffering.

Since I feel conscientiously bound to regard all the laws of my being as God's laws, and now recognizing this law in that light, I cannot feel exempt from its obligation. Eighteen years of obedience to this law has demonstrated the fact in my case, that civilized woman can, by so doing, be as exempt from suffering as their uncivilized sisters.

Oh! that civilized women would dare to be as healthy as Indian women are, by daring to be as natural in obeying this law of woman's nature; then might we hope for progress, based on the plane of sound and vigorous constitutions in their offspring.