^ 
 
 LIBRARY I 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 1 
 CALIFORNIA^/ 
 
HV 
 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE question has very naturally been raised why 
 heretofore no attempt should have been made at an 
 adequate biography of Dorothea Lynde Dix ; in fact, 
 why except for a few brief accounts of her career, 
 printed in magazines, read before private clubs, or 
 inserted in encyclopaedias no real information is to 
 be had about her. 
 
 Here is a woman who, as the founder of vast and 
 enduring institutions of mercy in America and in 
 Europe, has simply no peer in the annals of Prot- 
 estantism. To find her parallel in this respect, it is 
 necessary to go back to the lives of such memorable 
 Roman Catholic women as St. Theresa of Spain or 
 Santa Chiara of Assisi, and to the amazing work they 
 did in founding throughout European Christendom 
 great conventual establishments. Why, then, do the 
 majority of the present generation know little or noth- 
 ing of so remarkable a story ? 
 
 It was from no lack of pressure on the part of 
 admirers and venerators of the character and work of 
 so exceptional a woman that this came about. The 
 invincible obstacle lay in her own positive refusal to 
 
 620 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 permit anything to be written of her. Living to the 
 advanced age of eighty-five, and never pausing in her 
 career of beneficent activity till fully eighty, she cher- 
 ished all the disdain of the heroic soldier setting out 
 on ever fresh campaigns, at the thought of quitting the 
 post of present duty to look after the lustre of past 
 laurels. Not in the winning of laurels, but in the suc- 
 cor of human misery, lay the dominating purpose of 
 her life. A woman of great pride and dignity of 
 character, fully conscious, too, of the immensity of 
 the work she had achieved on two continents, she yet 
 shrank in utter aversion from what seemed to her the 
 degradation of mere public notoriety. 
 
 Two equally strong, but totally contrasted, natures 
 lay in her : the one the outcome of a sensitive, suffer- 
 ing temperament, instinctively seeking to shield itself 
 from gall or wound ; the other born of the fortitude 
 of a martyr in fronting danger, loneliness, and ob- 
 loquy, in championing the cause of the friendless and 
 "ready to perish." To all this must be added a depth 
 of self-abnegating religious faith which made her life 
 one long struggle to prostrate a spirit naturally proud 
 and imperious at the footstool of God, in the lowly 
 cry, " Not unto me, not unto me, but unto Thy Name 
 be the praise ! " 
 
 As far back as in 1851, Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, then 
 engaged on a book to be entitled " Lives and Charac- 
 ters of Distinguished Women," applied to Miss Dix 
 for data from which to write an account of her career. 
 To this, as to numberless like appeals, Miss Dix re- 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 plied in the following strain, so indicative of her per- 
 sistent feeling in the matter : 
 
 " I feel it right to say to you frankly that nothing could 
 be undertaken which would give me more pain and serious 
 annoyance, which would so trespass on my personal rights, 
 ... or interfere more seriously with the real usefulness of 
 my mission. I am not ambitious of nominal distinctions, 
 and notoriety is my special aversion. 
 
 " My reputation and my services belong to my country. 
 My history and my affections are consecrated to my friends. 
 It will be soon enough when the angel of the last hour 
 shall have arrested my labors to give their history and their 
 results. This period cannot be many years distant. I 
 confess that giving unnecessary publicity to women while 
 they yet live, and to their works, seems to me singularly at 
 variance with the delicacy and modesty which are the most 
 attractive ornaments of their sex." 
 
 For years following, such ardent friends as Hon. 
 Alexander Kandall, of Annapolis, Maryland, General 
 John A. Dix, 1 of New York, and Rev. William G. 
 Eliot, D. D., of St. Louis, importuned her not to suffer 
 such a life-story to die with her. Both Mr. Randall 
 and Dr. Eliot themselves offered to write out a detailed 
 
 1 Though always beginning his letters to her with "Dear Sister," 
 no traceable relationship existed between Miss Dix and General John 
 A. Dix. Miss Dix's admiration, however, was always great for the 
 man who united such varied qualities as those of the pure states- 
 man, the brave soldier who made the country ring with his " If any 
 man haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot," and the 
 Christian scholar who gave the world such devout and beautiful trans- 
 lations of mediaeval Latin hymns. 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 memorial of her career, if only she would dictate to 
 them the leading incidents and supply the needful 
 papers. But she had no time nor inclination to turn 
 aside. Years later, however, when extreme old age 
 had rendered the further prosecution of her labors an 
 impossibility, both Mr. Randall and General Dix 
 renewed their entreaties, and succeeded in extracting 
 a half promise from her to make out needful memo- 
 randa and reduce the confused mass of her papers to 
 some kind of chronological order. 
 
 Thus in June, 1878, a letter from General Dix to 
 Mr. Randall bears witness to the earnestness with 
 which they were cooperating toward this mutually 
 desired end : 
 
 " SEAFIELD, WEST HAMPTON, N. J. y 
 June 25, 1878. 
 
 " MY I>EAR SIB, I wrote to Miss Dix urging her to 
 make full notes of what she had done for the insane. There 
 is no record like hers, . I do not except Howard or Mrs. 
 Fry ; and it is due to our country to give a faithful account 
 of the labors of her life. ... I have pressed this duty on 
 her for years, and trust your solicitations and those of other 
 friends may decide her to perform it. 
 
 " Very truly yours, JOHN A. Dix." 
 
 Still later on, Mr. Randall writes urgently to Miss 
 Dix to know what progress has been made toward the 
 fulfillment of the promise given : 
 
 " How comes on the Memoir of Miss Dix ? You owe it 
 to our country properly to attend to it yourself. I know 
 you will not charge me with flattery when I say that if any 
 
PREFACE. vil 
 
 other female in the country had accomplished half as much 
 as you, you would have procured her life to be written or 
 written it yourself. . . . Pardon my plainness and repeated 
 request and urgency in this matter, for I do really think 
 such a life as yours has not filled up its measure of practical 
 good until posterity has the benefit of its example." 
 
 Two short extracts from replies of Miss Dix to such 
 letters of Mr. Randall's as the above will suffice to 
 show how baffling to her mind was this whole bio- 
 graphical matter : 
 
 BOSTON, MASS., October 13, 1870. 
 
 " I assure you of my respect for your opinions, and desire 
 to accept and act upon your request, if I can feel quickened 
 to this burthensome undertaking. . . . There is, I think, 
 great difficulty in writing of one's self : it is almost impossible 
 to present subjects, where the chief actor must be conspicu- 
 ous, and not seem to be, or really be, egotistical. Then, 
 much of my work has been where neglects and omissions 
 demanded remonstrance and persistent efforts for reforms 
 and amended usages, implying much wrong on the part of 
 others, who must be at the least noticed as blameworthy 
 through either habitual negligence or willful wrong." 
 
 TRENTON, N. J., May 10, 1880. 
 
 " I have found myself pressed under the obligation of a 
 promise to yourself, at once honorable to fulfill and yet most 
 difficult and oppressive to carry forward. It is impossible 
 for any one to realize how painful it is to rouse from within 
 a half century's painful past, embracing every form and con- 
 dition of distress, suffering, misery and adversity. . . . Lan- 
 guage seems to lose force and words to define weakly what 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 has been and now is, in the present hour as in the expired 
 years. I cannot, my valued friend, bring into order suitably 
 for a brief memoir any written details that seem to me fitly 
 to convey to any reader what cannot be realized, because 
 there is no relative standard of contrast or comparison. 
 The whole of my years, from the age of ten to the present, 
 differ essentially from the experience and pursuits of those 
 around me." 
 
 Yet one more ground of reluctance on the part of 
 Miss Dix to having any record of her life given to the 
 world must here in conclusion be noted. It was one 
 frequently emphasized by her, and is too characteris- 
 tic alike of the pity of her heart and of her habitual 
 way of looking on her own exceptional history to be 
 omitted. Such an account, she feared, would exert 
 an unhealthy influence in inducing romantic young 
 women to think it their mission to undertake some 
 work of a similar kind. " No, let them fall in love, 
 marry, and preside over a happy home," she would 
 say ; " it will be a thousand times better for them." 
 She who had never known the meaning of home, even 
 in childhood, who had led a lonely and wandering life, 
 who had carried ever in her heart an unsatisfied yearn- 
 ing after those closer ties which unite human beings 
 in the heaven of tender family relations ; she, too, 
 who, in her redeeming career of half a century, had 
 sounded all the depths of human misery, and knew 
 how stern the conflict and cruel the wounds inevitable 
 in a lifelong struggle to secure redress, felt, as none who 
 had not shared the like experience could feel, that 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 nothing short of an irresistible call from God should 
 induce any one to embark on such a work. 
 
 The result of these persistent solicitations was that 
 toward the very close of her life, when well-nigh help- 
 less with disease, Miss Dix made faltering attempts 
 to reduce her papers to order. She was then too feeble 
 for the task, and they were left in a state of great con- 
 fusion. Shortly before her death, however, she gave 
 to her trusted friend and executor, Mr. Horace A. 
 Lamb, of Boston, her full consent that, if such re- 
 mained his final judgment, the papers might be used 
 in the preparation of a memoir of her life and work. 
 Unfortunately, in what must be regarded as a mis- 
 taken sense of the duty of self-effacement, she had pre- 
 viously issued positive commands to her many friends 
 to destroy her own private letters. A few of these 
 friends happily refused to obey the injunction, and 
 to their pious care for her memory is it alone due 
 that any vivid picture can at this date be drawn of 
 her. 
 
 The writer of her biography would take this occa- 
 sion to express his sense of great personal obligation 
 to Miss Augusta I. Appleton, of the Boston Athe- 
 naeum, and to Miss Katharine H. Stone, for their pa- 
 tient and discriminating labor in reducing the original 
 chaos of the papers to any kind of manageable order. 
 Also, to the superintendents of insane asylums in 
 many quarters of the United States and of Canada, 
 especially to Dr. John S. Butler, Dr. John W. Ward, 
 Dr. Charles H. Nichols, and Dr. Horace A. But- 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 tolph; to Daniel Hack Tuke, M. D., F. R. C. P., 
 of Hanwell, England, and to William Kathbone, 
 Esq., M. P., of Liverpool; as well as to numerous 
 private friends of Miss Dix, he would here record 
 his cordial thanks for constant courtesy and invalua- 
 ble aid. 
 
 F. T. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, MASS., February 16, 1890. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 BIRTH AND ANCESTRY 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 BEGINS TEACHING IN BOSTON . 14 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE ISLAND OF ST. CROES 27 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 - THE MODEL SCHOOL AND ITS PENALTY 35 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 IN LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND 44 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE OLDER THEORIES OF INSANITY 53 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 o THE BREAKING OF A NEW DAY 60 
 
 CHAPTER VIH. 
 o THE DESCENT INTO INFERNO 73 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 C SUCCESS OF THE FlRST MEMORIAL . .83 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 RHODE ISLAND NEXT 94 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 MY FIRST-BORN CHILD 104 
 
LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BIRTH AND ANCESTRY. 
 
 THOUGH by ancestry and subsequent education a 
 Massachusetts woman, Dorothea (christened Doro- 
 thy) Lynde Dix was born, April 4, 1802, in the State 
 of Maine. Her birth occurred during a temporary 
 stay of her parents in the town of Hampden, on the 
 Penobscot River ; one, in fact, of the very many 
 places in which her father, who was of an unstable 
 and wandering turn of mind, appears for a short time 
 to have lived. Indeed, this instability of character 
 on the part of Joseph Dix, the father, together with 
 the frequent changes of residence and occupation it 
 involved, makes it impossible to trace with any pre- 
 cision the various stages of the early childhood of his 
 later so remarkable daughter. 
 
 Glimpses of this childhood are lighted on at various 
 spots in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, as 
 well as in "Worcester and Boston, Massachusetts. So 
 painful, however, to the subsequent woman always 
 remained the memory of its bitterness that in no hour 
 of the most confidential intimacy could she be induced 
 to unlock the silence which to the very end of life she 
 maintained as to all the incidents of her early days. 
 
LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX, 
 
 As throwing light on the development of character 
 in a woman of the ultimate stamp of Miss Dix, it be- 
 comes necessary to hint, at least, at the peculiar na- 
 ture of the trials to which she was so early subjected. 
 They were the trials that inevitably follow in the 
 track of a shiftless, aimless, and wandering life, 
 poverty, lack of public respect, the absence of perma- 
 nency of relation with schools, churches, and a circle 
 of endeared and sympathetic friends. Among the 
 abnormal tendencies of the father was one of subjec- 
 tion to states of fanatical religious excitement, during 
 which he became wholly engrossed in writing and issu- 
 ing tracts, the supreme importance of which to the 
 world's salvation outweighed in his mind every ques- 
 tion of the material maintenance and needful educa- 
 tion of his family. These tracts the little Dorothy, 
 then twelve years old, and for the time being in Wor- 
 cester, Massachusetts, was, to save expense, set so 
 continuously to pasting and stitching together that, in 
 her revolt at the hateful task so the seemingly au- 
 thentic story has come down, she ran away from 
 Worcester, and put herself under the protection of her 
 grandmother, then resident in Boston. A proud, 
 ambitious, and high-spirited child, her paternal 
 grandmother living in considerable wealth and dig- 
 nity, she appears to have suffered much the same 
 misery of humiliation at being cut off from advan- 
 tages of education and kept at menial tasks which 
 Charles Dickens so painfully analyzes in the picture 
 he draws of his own boy-apprenticeship in the black- 
 ing-factory. Thus the acute sensitiveness of fibre and 
 high sense of personal dignity so characteristic of the 
 mature woman were manifest from the very start. 
 
 Very early in life, then, was the self-reliant and in- 
 
BIRTH AND ANCESTRY. 3 
 
 domitable nature of the child rudely awakened to the 
 necessity of resolutely fronting the world and fighting 
 her way on her own resources. In seeking refuge in 
 her grandmother's house, she saw the only chance 
 open to her of securing a fit education. She had at 
 this time a much younger brother, born ten years 
 later than herself, toward whom she felt the duty 
 would surely devolve on her of becoming protectress 
 and child-mother. The first step to the possibility 
 of this lay in achieving independence for herself, a 
 conviction increased in strength when, in the follow- 
 ing year, another brother was born. Break through 
 these trammels of poverty and humiliation she must ; 
 force her way out to some pecuniary basis she must. 
 Eager for knowledge, ambitious for more refined anct 
 intellectual social opportunities, loaded down already 
 with a premature sense of responsibility, thus early 
 had the iron entered her soul, and the conviction been 
 developed in her of the reality and sharpness of the 
 battle of life. 
 
 From what ancestral source, then, it is natural to 
 ask, had descended to the child this self-reliant will, 
 this indomitable resolve to open up for herself a career 
 of her own, together with so high wrought a sense of 
 moral obligation ? All the more natural is it to ask 
 this question, seeing that her immediate parents were 
 lacking in energetic fibre. 
 
 Very common is it to notice that salient family 
 traits overleap one entire generation only to reappear 
 in renewed force in the generation following. Em- 
 phatically was this the case in the instance before us. 
 The paternal grandfather and grandmother of Doro- 
 thea were persons of very marked characteristics, 
 characteristics which in a more refined and spiritual- 
 
4 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 ized shape, and enlisted in the service of an impas- 
 sioned idea, took higher though kindred shape in the 
 grandchild. These furnished the vigorous native 
 stock into which evolving Providence was to engraft 
 scions capable of more sweetly-perfumed flowers and 
 of fruit of a richer flavor. 
 
 Dr. Elijah Dix, the grandfather, was born, August 
 24, 1747, in Watertown, Massachusetts. Of sound 
 old New England stock, but poor, as were most chil- 
 dren of large families in the colonial days, he had his 
 own way to make in the world. Struggling doughtily 
 for such desultory education as he could secure, his 
 aspirations were none the less high, and to be satisfied 
 with nothing short of fitting himself for one of the 
 learned professions, as, in those days, theology, law, 
 and medicine were perhaps we should now think 
 somewhat humorously termed. A college career he 
 could not compass. Effecting, however, an arrange- 
 ment with Dr. John Green, an eminent practitioner in 
 Worcester, he spent with him three years, engaged in 
 compounding medicines and studying the theoretical 
 part of the profession ; and after supplementing this 
 term with two more years under William Greenleaf, 
 druggist of Boston, he began practice in 1770 as phy- 
 sician and surgeon in Worcester. 
 
 The characteristics of the young man eminently 
 fitted him for worldly success. Strong in body, cour- 
 ageous and self-asserting in temperament, ambitious 
 of power and position, nothing daunted him. And 
 yet along with these qualities, whose aggressive ex- 
 cess rendered him highly unpopular, he united a large 
 degree of public spirit and of far-sighted practical 
 judgment. As he rose to position and could make 
 his influence felt, he was the first man in Worcester to 
 
BIRTH AND ANCESTRY. 5 
 
 advocate by precept and example the planting of shade 
 trees for the adornment of the town, a remarkable 
 idiosyncrasy of taste, it was thought, at a period in 
 our colonial history when, in the weary struggle of 
 the early settlers with the primeval forests, a tree was 
 looked upon as as natural an enemy of man as a bear 
 or an Indian. He was further a zealous promoter of 
 all means of opening up the country for freer trade 
 and social intercourse, as, notably, in the instance of 
 the Worcester and Boston turnpike. Those were the 
 days when the title of " Pontifex Maximus " meant 
 something, and was not worn as an idle badge of 
 honor by emperors and popes. As an instance, more- 
 over, of his sturdy honesty, it may be stated that, at 
 the end of the Revolutionary War, he crossed the 
 ocean to settle his financial accounts with his former 
 associate in medical practice, Dr. Sylvester Gardiner, 
 and to pay over what he considered fairly the due of 
 his partner. This Dr. Gardiner had, at the outbreak 
 of disturbance with the mother country, taken the 
 royalist side, and so been forced, as a refugee, to flee 
 the colony. As a stanch patriot, Dr. Dix might 
 have felt himself entirely absolved from handing over 
 a penny to one whom it was only needful to stigmatize 
 as a traitor. As an honest man, however, he did not 
 feel himself thus absolved. 
 
 Returning home from England with a large collec- 
 tion of books, surgical instruments, and chemical appa- 
 ratus, Dr. Dix now engaged in the sale of such articles, 
 pursued his medical practice, and projected with great 
 ardor the plan of an academy. In spite, however, of 
 acknowledged ability and public spirit, his dictatorial 
 ways made him so unpopular with his fellow-citizens 
 that a plot was laid to drive him out of the town, 
 
6 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 or at any rate to subject him to personal violence. 
 Suspecting what was on foot, he, at the first sign of 
 practical action, proved himself entirely equal to the 
 emergency. One evening a man called at his house 
 to summon him to the sick-bed of a pretended patient, 
 living several miles out of town, and on the road to 
 whose house, as later appeared, an attacking party had 
 placed itself in ambush. The sturdy doctor promptly 
 expressed his professional willingness to go, taking 
 the precaution, however, to throw open the window 
 and call out in stentorian tones to his man-servant, 
 " Bring round my horse at once ; see that the pistols 
 in my holsters are double-shotted ; then give the bull- 
 dog a piece of raw meat and turn him loose to go 
 along ! " It is needless to say that the friend of the 
 imaginary sick man " folded his tents like the Arabs, 
 and silently stole away." 
 
 With the view of opening up to himself a still wider 
 field of activity, Dr. Elijah Dix, in 1795, seven years 
 before the birth of Dorothea, removed to Boston, 
 where he established a drug store on the south side of 
 Faneuil Hall, and further founded in South Boston 
 chemical works for refining sulphur and purifying cam- 
 phor. Successful in these enterprises, his indomitable 
 energy next sought vent in large land speculations in 
 the State of Maine, in which State he purchased im- 
 mense tracts, buying in one instance twenty thou- 
 sand acres for the site of a single projected farming 
 village, and becoming founder of the towns of Dixmont 
 and Dixfield, the settlers in which obtained the titles 
 to their farms from him. This diversion of interests 
 on the part of Dr., Elijah Dix henceforth necessitated 
 his making frequent journeys to Maine to see after 
 his property there, on one of which visits he died. 
 
BIRTH AND ANCESTRY. 7 
 
 His death occurred June 7, 1809, and liis body was 
 interred in the burial-ground near Dixmont Centre. 
 Thus easily is the birth of his granddaughter Dorothea 
 in Hampden, Maine, accounted for. Hampden lies 
 at but a short distance from Dixmont, and was then 
 the only town in the section of sufficient size to fur- 
 nish decent quarters. No doubt Dr. Elijah Dix had 
 attempted to make his son Joseph his agent for over- 
 seeing and disposing of the Maine lands. 
 
 The salient traits, then, of the character of Dr. Eli- 
 jah Dix were indomitable energy and spirit of initia- 
 tive in new enterprises, fertility of resource, dogged 
 honesty, large public spirit, and a masterful tempera- 
 ment that would ride over obstacles, no matter at what 
 cost of personal popularity. Though but seven years 
 old when her grandfather died, Dorothea always re- 
 tained a vivid remembrance of what she saw of him in 
 Boston in her childhood, particularly of his fondness 
 for driving her around with him in his chaise, and of 
 talking with her in his strong and racy way. He 
 stood out the one bright spot in her earliest memories, 
 implanting in her mind a life-long admiration for his 
 robust and picturesque qualities. Indeed, of the many 
 great asylums for the insane which she was later in- 
 strumental in founding, the only one she ever per- 
 mitted to be associated with her own name, was Dix- 
 mout Hospital, in Pennsylvania, a concealed tribute to 
 her grandfather, as founder of the town of Dixmont, 
 Maine. 
 
 After the death of Dr. Elijah Dix, his widow lived 
 on in Boston, occupying the, for those days, quite 
 stately house which went by the name of the Dix 
 Mansion. It was in the large garden surrounding 
 this house that, from some chance seed, sprang the 
 
8 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 celebrated Dix pear, one of those Melchisedecs in 
 pomology, without father and without mother, which, 
 like the far-famed Seckel, originated from the start 
 an illustrious family of its own. Here, then, continued 
 to reside the widow of Dr. Elijah Dix, who was des- 
 tined to survive her husband twenty-eight years, dying 
 only at the late date of April 29, 1837. As one whose 
 personal qualities and peculiar position as head of the 
 house exercised in many ways a marked influence on 
 the development of her granddaughter, it is necessary 
 briefly to speak of her prominent characteristics. 
 
 Dorothy Lynde, born May 23, 1746, and married, 
 October 1, 1771, to Dr. Elijah Dix, was the daughter 
 of Joseph Lynde, who, after the burning of Charles- 
 town, Mass., by the British troops, sought refuge with 
 his wife and children in Worcester. Already far 
 advanced in life when, at the age of twelve, her grand- 
 daughter became a member of her family, Madam Dix 
 was a typical example of the New England Puritan 
 gentlewoman of the period, dignified, precise, inflex- 
 ibly conscientious, unimaginative, and without trace 
 of emotional glow or charm. For generations, indeed, 
 it had been the outcome of the Puritan training of 
 New England to produce a class of mothers unflinch- 
 ingly nerved, if need be, to die at the stake for their 
 children, but whom no threat of penal fires would 
 have betrayed into the weakness of kissing them good- 
 night; and as these mothers duly advanced to the 
 dignified stage of grandmothers, the tendency became 
 ever more sharply accentuated. 
 
 Indeed, for simple emotional love as a fountain 
 leaping up in sallies of playful tenderness, the major- 
 ity of the parents of those now far-away days in which 
 Madam Dix had received the earliest stamp of the 
 
BIRTH AND ANCESTRY. 9 
 
 chilled-steel parental die shared no more sympathetic 
 a response than a mill-engineer for the poetry of the 
 charming cascades of the stream he seeks to utilize 
 for grinding the corn and weaving the cloth of the 
 people. To save waste of available power and to di- 
 vert the full emotional flow into a strong-banked, 
 prosaic race-way, from which the full head could be 
 turned on to the practical work of making the jackets 
 and knitting the socks of the young, of training them 
 to habits of rigid industry, of exacting iron diligence 
 over the school lessons, and of inculcating the dogmas 
 of the catechism in a way to make them a salutary 
 terror for life, this seemed the only aspect of the 
 divine quality of love which could be reconciled with 
 a severe sense of duty, and saved from the fatal dan- 
 ger of degenerating' into luxurious and enervating sen- 
 timentalism. There were good sides to this extreme, 
 and there were very bad ones. It insured a Spartan 
 discipline of education which put bark and iron into 
 the blood. But it steadily atrophied, and, as years 
 advanced, actually ossified, the lovelier and sunnier ca- 
 pacities of affection, opening up an impassable abyss 
 between old age and the sensitive, clinging heart of 
 childhood. 
 
 To Madam Dix, then, and to the old Dix Mansion, 
 the child Dorothea owed, on the one hand, a debt of 
 lasting obligation, and, on the other, years of acute 
 suffering and heart-starvation. When she sought ref- 
 uge from the unendurable humiliation of her life in 
 Worcester, it was to her grandmother's house that she 
 came, and here she secured the advantages of several 
 years of school education. It was a grim and joyless 
 home, but none the less it was a home in which she 
 was trained to habits of unremitting diligence. No 
 
10 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 waste of time was permitted, no task allowed to be 
 done in a slipshod way. Here was a child, the grand- 
 mother felt, who would have her own way to make in 
 the world, and who, as early as possible, would have 
 to become the mainstay of her family. She must fit 
 herself, then, for some occupation by which she could 
 win her bread. It would be cruelty to bring her up 
 with any other idea. In all this Madam Dix unques- 
 tionably felt that she was fulfilling the whole law of 
 love, and doing unto another as she at least ought to 
 desire that another should do unto her. Still, to the 
 child who was immature enough to crave a little play, 
 a little petting, and a little romance, the process 
 seemed no doubt very chilling and severe. 
 
 In later life, people come to be grateful for many 
 things which in childhood looked only hard and cruel. 
 The day was to arrive when Miss Dix, in her watch- 
 ful supervision of vast institutions for the relief of 
 human misery, institutions, in which failure in the 
 minutest detail of organization might lead to the most 
 tragic results was to prove the invaluable benefit of 
 this minute and rigid training. 
 
 Stern and unrelenting as it was, the grandmother 
 had, after all, an ideal of her own as to the thorough- 
 ness with which every piece of work should be done, 
 which was a true ideal. Indeed, there still lives in 
 Massachusetts a lady, who after the school was 
 later on established in the old Dix Mansion, as will 
 soon be recounted describes, as one of the most in- 
 delible memories of her own childhood days, how, as 
 an especial reward for excellence in moral conduct, 
 she herself was allowed the unusual privilege of mak- 
 ing an entire shirt under the Rhadaman thine eye of 
 Madam Dix. The sense of moral responsibility pre- 
 
BIRTH AND ANCESTRY. 11 
 
 cipitated on the poor child was literally crushing, as 
 now first the startling revelation broke on her mind 
 of the eternal distinction between the right way and 
 the wrong way in the minutest particulars. Of the 
 thousands of stitches entering into the awe-inspiring 
 structure, not one must differ from another to a degree 
 that could be detected by a micrometer. The one and 
 only immutably correct way of cutting and fitting the 
 neck-band seemed far more out of the range of mortal 
 possibility than the camel's passage through the eye 
 of a needle. And yet to this day the lady frankly 
 admits that, well-nigh fatal as the strain proved at 
 the time, the benefit was lifelong of having thus been 
 made to do at least one piece of work thoroughly well. 
 Indeed, she still speaks of the experience in the same 
 vein of enthusiastic gratitude in which here and there 
 a veteran scholar descants on the intellectual bark and 
 iron put into him by the inexorable discipline of the 
 classics, in the heroic days when, in the eyes of the 
 Latin master, a misplaced particle in a sentence was 
 as unpardonable a sin as was, in the eyes of Madam 
 Dix, a misplaced stitch in a shirt. 
 
 Meanwhile, the passionate, craving heart of the 
 child had to get along as best it could. She had her 
 bread, though it was often wet with salt tears. She 
 had shelter, education, and oversight ; the oversight 
 no doubt bestowed in what was felt to be absolute 
 fidelity to the clearest sense of duty. But as for a 
 warm breast and loving arms in which to nestle and 
 confide, this the kind heavens did not grant her. In 
 bitter intensity of grief would she at times in later 
 life break out over this irremediable loss in her child- 
 hood days. " I never knew childhood ! " she would 
 passionately exclaim. And it was true. To become 
 
12 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 independent in means, to educate herself for a posi- 
 tion that would command support and respect, to be 
 able to get her two younger brothers under the same 
 roof with her, and enact the part of child-mother 
 to them this early developed into the indomitable 
 purpose of her life. There was in those days but one 
 career of independence a growing girl could look 
 forward to, the vocation of the teacher. Happily, 
 preparation for this calling was in the line of the 
 deepest instincts of her nature. These were at that 
 time thirst for knowledge and longing to exert direct 
 moral influence. 
 
 The first authentic date of any attempt at teaching 
 on the part of the ardent young girl is her opening 
 a school for little children in Worcester, Mass., in 
 181617. She was then fourteen years old, and so 
 girlish in look that, as she herself tells the story, she 
 thought it necessary to put on long skirts and lengthen 
 the sleeves of her dress, so as to command due respect 
 by a more adult appearance. There still lives in 
 Worcester one of these pupils, who vividly recalls the 
 child-teacher as tall for her age, easily blushing, at 
 once beautiful and imposing in manner, but inexo- 
 rably strict in discipline. The skirt and sleeves of a 
 grown woman were, this lady thinks, in no way neces- 
 sary to secure for the young girl absolute ascendency 
 over her pupils. v She bore the stamp of authority 
 from the start. Herself brought up in a stern school, 
 she had at that date little idea of any government but 
 the government of will. Indeed, it is always charac- 
 teristic of very young people, abruptly forced to play 
 the role of maturity and experience, that they overdo 
 things. They show this fault in teaching their 
 younger brothers and sisters at home, and they fall 
 
BIRTH AND ANCESTRY. 13 
 
 into it in a still more pronounced way when, on taking 
 charge of a school, they think it incumbent on them, 
 as perhaps it is, to assert themselves from the outset. 
 Thus, the impression left on the minds of the little 
 girls and boys in Worcester by their fourteen-year-old 
 teacher, so far from being that of a half-grown girl 
 they could venture to trifle with, was that of one 
 of whom they stood in fea& 
 
 In truth, now first manifested itself the instinctive 
 consciousness of a nature born to rule, and seizing the 
 first swift and ready way. Into what a furnace of 
 pain and affliction that nature was to be baptized be- 
 fore it could be duly refined and tempered ; through 
 what years of lonely wrestlings, battle with disease, 
 submission of an iron will to the counsels of a Holier 
 Might, it was to pass before she should become fitted 
 to rule as justly, mercifully, and yet imperially as 
 she finally came to rule, all this lay happily hidden 
 from her in the womb of the slowly unfolding future. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 BEGINS TEACHING IN BOSTON. 
 
 FOR several years after the experiment with the 
 child-school in Worcester, in 181617, Miss Dix ap- 
 pears to have lived with her grandmother in Boston, 
 her leisure devoted to carrying on her own studies in 
 preparation for opening a school for older pupils. 
 Though then but a town of forty thousand inhabi- 
 tants, Boston was already giving signs of an intellec- 
 tual ferment in theology, philanthropy, philosophy, 
 and literature, which was to inaugurate a new epoch 
 in the spiritual history of New England. The day of 
 provincialism was passing away. Higher ideals of 
 God and of human destiny were breaking in, and 
 young and ardent minds, emancipating themselves 
 from the cramping traditions of the past, already felt 
 that the long, weary sojourn in the wilderness was 
 over, and that, standing at last on Pisgah, they could 
 overlook a veritable Land of Promise. None en- 
 tered more earnestly into certain phases of this spir- 
 itual rebirth, or hailed more rapturously its prophets 
 of the type of Channing, than did Miss Dix. 
 
 Not, probably, before the year 1821 did she resume 
 the actual work of teaching, beginning with classes of 
 day-pupils, in a little house of her grandmother's in 
 Orange Court, and only by degrees, raising the stan- 
 dard, till the modest beginning finally developed into a 
 combined boarding and day school in the Dix Man- 
 
BEGINS TEACHING IN BOSTON. 15 
 
 sion itself, to which children were sent from the most 
 prominent families in Boston, as well as from towns 
 as far away as then was Portsmouth, N. H. Later on 
 she was to have her younger brothers with her under 
 the same roof, and was to become practical mistress 
 of the Dix Mansion. The increasing infirmities of 
 the grandmother now kept her largely confined to her 
 own room, an added care of no slight nature. Thus by 
 degrees were devolved upon the never strong young 
 woman the duties of housekeeper, teacher, motherly 
 elder sister, and matron of the boarding-pupils, to- 
 gether with the necessity of carrying on her own as 
 yet imperfect intellectual training, duties which she 
 assumed with unflinching spirit. Fond of responsi- 
 bility, ambitious of success, and on fire with an ideal 
 of what a teacher might prove, for time and for 
 eternity, to the children committed to her care, she 
 took no thought of flesh and blood. 
 
 Seemingly, responsibilities so arduous as these 
 would have been enough to satisfy the most exacting 
 conscience. In Miss Dix's case, however, there was 
 one imperious element of her nature which they alto- 
 gether failed to content. More and more evident 
 will it grow, as this narrative proceeds, that the sense 
 of pitiful compassion_J:oji^J^i|^ 
 suffermg^~was the strongest element in her being. 
 She would work for herself now, for work she must ; 
 she would work for her younger brothers till they 
 were ready to go forth and do for themselves; but 
 the moment she should stand free, then beyond all 
 things the nearest and dearest of God's privileges to 
 her would be the championship of the outcast and 
 ready to perish. Soon, therefore, besides the school al- 
 ready taxing to exhaustion her strength, she establishes 
 
16 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 another in a room over the stable of the Dix Man- 
 sion v for poor and neglected children. How pitifully 
 she had to plead for permission to do this comes out 
 touchingly in the following letter, so full of the spirit 
 of merciful humanity then first beginning its struggle 
 with that older inflexible temper of Puritanism, which 
 had submissively waited on adult conversion to repair 
 in an hour the results of years of indifference and 
 neglect. The letter is without date, but belongs early 
 in the school-keeping days. 
 
 " MY DEAR GRANDMOTHER, Had I the saint-like elo- 
 quence of our minister, I would employ it in explaining all 
 the motives, and dwelling on all the good, good to the poor, 
 the miserable, the idle, and the ignorant, which would follow 
 your giving me permission to use the barn chamber for a 
 school-room for charitable and religious purposes. You 
 have read Hannah More's life, you approve of her labors 
 for the most degraded of England's paupers ; why not, when 
 it can be done without exposure or expense, let me rescue 
 some of America's miserable children from vice and guilt ? 
 . . . Do, my dear grandmother, yield to my request, and 
 witness next summer the reward of your benevolent and 
 Christian compliance. 
 
 " Your affectionate Granddaughter, D. L. Dix." 
 
 Like the feeble beginnings in another " upper cham- 
 ber " in Judaea, this early attempt at stretching out 
 a helping hand to outcast children, was to lead on to 
 far-reaching results. The little barn-school proved the 
 nucleus out of which, years later, was developed the 
 beneficent work of the Warren Street Chapel, from 
 which, as a centre, spread far and wide a new ideal 
 of dealing with childhood. There first was interest 
 excited in the mind of Rey._Charles Barnard, a man 
 of positive spiritual genius in charming and uplifting 
 
BEGINS TEACHING IN BOSTON. 17 
 
 the children of the poor and debased. With all the 
 love of St. Vincent de Paul in his heart, and a fund 
 of originality in devising happy ways and means, the 
 words of Jesus, " Suffer the little children to come 
 unto me," were the very breath of his life. And 
 when the children gladly responded, it was not to find 
 themselves tormented with rigid catechising and a 
 cast-iron drill, but to be taken into open arms of 
 love, and to be ushered into a new world of beauty 
 and freedom. 
 
 In the year 1823, Miss Dix began a correspond- 
 ence, to be continued at intervals for fifty years, with 
 a dear friend, Miss Anne Heath, of Brookline, Mass., 
 but for the preservation of which no adequate picture 
 could be drawn of the early womanhood of the young 
 teacher. It is to an endeared few alone that person- 
 alities of the inborn reticence of Miss Dix are ever 
 able to reveal their inner life. And yet so very great 
 is oftentimes the contrast between the maturer bearing 
 of characters marked by commanding practical ability, 
 and the life of the same persons in the romantic 
 period of youth, that but for some such revelation 
 the hidingplace of their power would go uiisurmised. 
 Indeed, the standing marvel of psychological history 
 lies in the imperceptible steps by which so often the 
 sighs and tears of sentimental feeling lead on to the 
 masterly self-control and disciplined strength of ad- 
 vancing years. These letters furnish, then, but one 
 more illustration of the fact that a certain even peril- 
 ous excess of sensibility will be found at the root of 
 all natures that ever achieve anything high and heroic 
 in life. 
 
 Emphatically did all this hold true of the youth of 
 the subject of this biography. Self-repressed and self- 
 
18 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 mastered as later on she outwardly fronted the world, 
 inwardly her soul was in those days full to the brim 
 of passion and heart-break, of poetic enthusiasm and 
 religious exaltation. In truth, for some years to come, 
 the chief faults of her character are directly traceable 
 to this. Her demands on herself, her demands on 
 her friends, her demands on her pupils, were out of 
 all bounds. She herself must be pure spirit, taking 
 no counsel of flesh and blood ; her friends must be 
 incarnations of every attribute of intellect and every 
 grace of soul ; in her pupils she must detect, in embryo 
 at least, the prophecy of the coming ideal mothers and 
 saintly helpers of the world. And so the inevitable 
 reaction from such overwrought expectations was 
 subjection to hours of bitter disillusion and even of 
 passionate, unjust censure of average, commonplace 
 mortality. 
 
 As tending to foster excess of sentimental feeling, it 
 is here of importance to note the habit, in those days 
 indulged in by young women, of voluminous, effusive 
 correspondence with one another. Their letters, with- 
 out date and without distinct reference to anything in 
 time or space that would enable a future bewildered 
 biographer to affix to them " a local habitation and a 
 name," wandered off into realms of purely subjective 
 poetry, philanthropy, philosophy, and religion. And 
 yet what intensity of inward life these letters reveal ! 
 Anything was enough to start one of them. the 
 death of an infant, a peculiarly beautiful sunset, a 
 new volume of poetry, an inspiring or heart-searching 
 passage in the sermon of the previous Sunday ; and 
 then would they roll on through literally continental 
 sheets of paper, to all the length and with all the vol- 
 ume of the Mississippi. 
 
BEGINS TEACHING IN BOSTON. 19 
 
 Far easier is it to give an idea of the character of 
 these letters by example than by description. The 
 method of illustration by extracts is of course exposed 
 to the danger of conveying entirely erroneous impres- 
 sions of brevity. None the less it may impart a sense 
 of the spirit of these copious interchanges of thought 
 and feeling. First, then, let the following serve as a 
 commentary on the intensity with which poetry was 
 in those days read by passionate young women, 
 those days of comparatively few books, in which a 
 new poet was a fresh visitant from the celestial sphere. 
 The L. E. L. to whom reference is made is Letitia 
 Elizabeth Landon, a young Englishwoman, whose 
 strains of tender melancholy and romantic sentiment 
 were marked by a degree of real power, which under 
 severer training might have given her a permanent 
 place in literature. The letter from which the extract 
 is made was written to Miss Heath, near midnight, 
 presumably in 1823 : 
 
 " DEAR ANXIE, You say I weep easily. I was early 
 taught to sorrow, to shed tears, and now, when sudden joy 
 lights up or any unexpected sorrow strikes my heart, I find 
 it difficult to repress the full and swelling tide of feeling. 
 Even now, though alone and with no very exciting cause of 
 joy or grief, I am paying my watery tribute to the genius of 
 L. E. L. Oh, Anne ! she is a poetess that expresses all the 
 genius and fire of Byron, unalloyed with his gross faults ; 
 all the beautiful flow of words which fall like music on the 
 air from the pen of Moore, without his little less than half- 
 concealed consciousness ; all the simplicity of Wordsworth 
 without his prosiness and stiffness ; finally, in the words of 
 her reviewer, ' If she never excels what she already has 
 written, we can confidently give her the assurance of what 
 the possessor of such talents must earnestly covet, immor- 
 tality.'' The ' Improvisatrice ' will soon be published in this 
 
20 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 country and then, Anne, prepare for the enjoyment of this 
 rich feast. 
 
 " I worship talents, almost. I sinfully dare mourn that I 
 possess them not. ... It is not that I may win the world's 
 applause that I would possess a mind above the common 
 sphere, but that I might revel in the luxury of those mental 
 visions that must hourly entrance a spirit that partakes less 
 of earth than heaven. ... I shall try to feel and to act 
 better, but I cannot cease to lament. 
 
 " Good-night, THEA." 
 
 No one can read a letter like this, crude as it is 
 in expression, a letter written at midnight, her only 
 hour of leisure, by a young woman who, in ill health, 
 was bearing so exhausting a burden, without feeling 
 the fierce pulsebeat of an aspiring nature, which read 
 poetry not for pastime, but for dear life ; not for the 
 diversion of an idle hour, but for refuge in a realm of 
 ideality, and for solace to its passionate yearning after 
 a wider, richer experience. 
 
 Again and again, in this correspondence with Miss 
 Heath, there breaks out the cry of loneliness and 
 heart-hunger. The strain of each day's work, in itself 
 severe enough, was made all the more exhausting by 
 the additional tasks a mind incapable of rest was 
 forever imposing on itself. Rising before the sun and 
 going to bed after midnight, steadily bent on supple- 
 menting the defects of an imperfect early education, 
 at work on text-books like her " Science of Common 
 Things " (which ultimately went through sixty editions, 
 and the fundamental data of which she had to learn 
 as she wrote them down), inevitably there set in that 
 physical exhaustion of body and brain out of which 
 no further response is to be had but by plying whip 
 and spur. There was no joy in the house, no refuge 
 
BEGINS TEACHING IN BOSTON. 21 
 
 in a merry, loving home circle, no leisure from ever- 
 pursuing cares. Thence the hungry void in her heart 
 which led her often to write in a strain like this : 
 
 " Anne, my dear friend, if ever you are disposed to think 
 your lot an unhappy one or your heart desolate, think of 
 her whose pathway is yet more thorny, and whose way is 
 cheered by no close connections. . . . You have an almost 
 angelic mother, Anne ; you cannot but be both good and 
 happy while she hovers over you, ministering to your wants, 
 and supplying all that the fondest affection can provide, 
 Your sisters, too, they comfort you. / have none." 
 
 As early as 1824 it was becoming doubtful whether 
 the young teacher would have health enough to permit 
 of her carrying through the scheme on which she had 
 embarked with such energy. Symptoms of lung con- 
 gestion, with tendency to hemorrhage, were becoming 
 marked. Her voice, remarkable through later life for 
 purity, sweetness, and depth, was growing weak and 
 husky. She was fast contracting a stoop of the shoul- 
 ders, and her frequent attitude, as she stood to conduct 
 her classes, was that of supporting herself with one 
 hand holding on to the desk, and the other pressed 
 hard to her side as though to repress a sharp pain. 
 " Over the future hangs a veil which mortal eyes may 
 not essay to penetrate," she now writes her friend 
 Miss Heath, " but we may trust in the Lord, and be 
 of good courage." 
 
 Of good, of heroic, courage she always was. It was 
 never her will that flinched, but only the body that 
 from time to time dropped prone to the ground. In- 
 deed, it is scarcely without a half-pathetic smile that 
 one can read such self-reproachful goadings of an al- 
 ready overtaxed mind and body as this : 
 
22 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 " There is in our nature a disposition to indulgence, a secret 
 desire to escape from labor, which, unless hourly combated, 
 will overcome and destroy the best faculties of our minds, 
 and paralyze our most useful powers. Protracted ill health 
 is often suffered to become the ally of this hidden disposi- 
 tion, and there is hardly anything so difficult to contend 
 with and conquer. I have often entertained a dread lest I 
 should fall a victim to my besieger, and that fear has saved 
 me so far." 
 
 None the less even she was before long forced to 
 yield, and for the next two or three years to spend her 
 time largely in efforts to establish her health. The 
 sharpest pang of this necessity lay in the separation it 
 involved from the charge of her younger brothers, of 
 one of whom she writes to Miss Heath : 
 
 " Oh, Anne,, if that child is but good, I care not how hum- 
 ble his pathway through life. It is for him my soul is filled 
 with bitterness when sickness wastes me ; it is because of 
 him I dread to die. I know I should have more faith ; ' the 
 spirit is willing, but the flesh is' the betrayer." 
 
 Happily for the future of Miss Dix, she had by this 
 time won the respect and love of several very influen- 
 tial people in Boston. Chief among these was the 
 celebrated divine, Dr. William Ellery Channing. who 
 evidently clearly understood alike the admirable and 
 the dangerous points in her nature, and frankly coun- 
 seled her. 
 
 " I look forward to your future life [he on one occasion 
 wrote] not altogether without solicitude, but with a prevail- 
 ing hope. Your infirm health seems to darken your pros- 
 pects of usefulness. But I believe your constitution will yet 
 be built up, if you will give it a fair chance. You must 
 learn to give up your plans of usefulness, as much as those 
 of gratification, to the will of God. We may make these 
 
BEGINS TEACHING IN BOSTON. 23 
 
 the occasion of self-will, vanity, and pride as much as any- 
 thing else. May not one of your chief dangers lie there ? 
 . . . The infirmity which I warn you of, though one of 
 good minds, is an infirmity. ... It is said that our faults 
 and virtues are sometimes so strangely interwoven that we 
 must spare the first for the sake of the last. If I thought so 
 in your case, I would withhold my counsel, for your virtues 
 are too precious to be put to hazard for such faults as I 
 might detect." 
 
 One fortunate outcome of this relation with Dr. 
 Channing was an invitation to undertake the education 
 of his children for six months of the spring and sum- 
 mer of 1827. This happily removed her from the 
 bleak climate of Boston to the softer air and charming 
 scenery of Narragansett Bay, where in Portsmouth, 
 R. L, at the distance of a few miles from Newport, his 
 birthplace, Dr. Channing had a country-seat. Her 
 duties were light, she could be much in the open air, 
 and at last her passion for hero-worship found satis- 
 faction in close intimacy with an actual human being 
 so exalted in intellect and saintly in character that 
 the more nearly she came in contact with him the 
 deeper grew her veneration. 
 
 Already no mean proficient in botany, and with a 
 lively interest in all departments of natural history, 
 the flowers, seaweeds, shells, and general marine life 
 of the beautiful region exercised a fascination over 
 her that drew her away from inward conflict and gave 
 a healthier objective tone to her mind. When the en- 
 gagement terminated, in October, Dr. Channing wrote 
 her : 
 
 " You have no burden of gratitude laid upon you, for we 
 feel that you gave at least as much good as you received. 
 We will hear no more of thanks, but your affection for us 
 
24 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 and our little ones we will treasure up among our precious 
 blessings. ... I wish to say to you that if you should think 
 another summer's residence on Rhode Island would be 
 beneficial to you, Mrs. Channing and myself would be glad 
 to engage your services for our children. I dare not urge 
 the arrangement, for I have an interest in it." 
 
 For several successive winters, now, pulmonary 
 weakness compelled Miss Dix to seek refuge from the 
 severe winter climate of New England in Philadel- 
 phia, and in Alexandria, Va. She kept herself busy 
 with reading of a very multifarious kind, poetry, 
 science, biography, and travel, besides eking out the 
 scanty means she had laid by from her teaching by 
 writing stories and compiling floral albums and books 
 of devotion. 1 The effect of illness was rarely to de- 
 press her spirits. Indeed, it must here be emphasized 
 
 1 The following list of the various books written by Miss Dix, 
 either while actually at work teaching, or while away seeking health, 
 has been kindly furnished by Miss A. I. Appleton, of the Boston 
 Athenteum : 
 
 1 . Conversations on Common Things. Boston, Munroe & Francis, 
 1824. In 1869, this book had reached its sixtieth edition. 
 
 2. Hymns for Children, Selected and Altered. Boston, Munroe & 
 Francis, 1825. Rearranged, Boston, 1833. 
 
 3. Evening Hours. Boston, Munroe & Francis, 1825. 
 
 4. Ten Short Stories for Children, 1827-28. Afterwards published 
 under the title American Moral Tales for Young Persons. Boston, 
 Leonard C. Bowles & B. H. Greene, 1832. Contents: John Wil- 
 liams, or The Sailor Boy; Little Agnes and Blind Mary; Robert 
 Woodard, or The Heedless Boy ; James Coleman, or The Reward of 
 Perseverance ; The Dainty Boy ; Alice and Ruth ; Marrion Wilder, 
 The Passionate Little Girl; Sequel to Marrion Wilder; George 
 Mills ; The Storm. 
 
 5. Meditations for Private Hours. Boston, 1828. A number of 
 subsequent editions. 
 
 6. The Garland of Flora. Boston, S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829. 
 
 7. The Pearl, or Affection's Gift; A Christmas and New Year's 
 Present. Philadelphia, 1829. 
 
BEGINS TEACHING IN BOSTON. 25 
 
 as a marked characteristic of her at once heroic and 
 devout nature that suffering not only rallied to the 
 front her powers of resistance, but actually induced a 
 state of high spiritual exaltation. Throughout her 
 whole future career, this will be strikingly apparent. 
 Very interesting is it, then, to read, in the two following 
 extracts from letters written while away in the South 
 to Miss Heath, her own clear recognition of this consti- 
 tutional trait : 
 
 "DEAR ANNIE, I am never less disposed to sadness 
 than when ill and alone. Sometimes I have fancied that it 
 was the nature of my disease to create a rising, elastic state 
 of mind, but be that as it will (I speak solemnly), the hour 
 of bodily suffering is to me the hour of spiritual joy. It is 
 then that most I feel my dependence on God and his power 
 to sustain. It is then that I rejoice to feel that, though the 
 earthly frame decay, the soul shall never die. The disci- 
 pline which has brought me to this has been long and 
 varied : it has led through a valley of tears, a life of woe. 
 ... It is happiness to feel progression, and to feel that the 
 power that thus aids is not of earth." 
 
 Again, as presenting a vivid picture of how quickly 
 any vision of sublimity or beauty, whether in the 
 physical or the moral world, would lift her above bod- 
 ily suffering into a state of transport and adoration, 
 the following extract from a letter of this period is 
 highly characteristic : 
 
 " Last night, dear Annie, I could not sleep, and after 
 several restless hours rose at one o'clock, wrapped myself 
 warmly in my flannel gown, and was in search of my medi- 
 cine, when the remarkable clearness of the sky drew me to 
 my window. There was Orion with his glittering sword 
 and jeweled belt, Aldebaran, the fiery eye of Taurus, 
 Saturn with his resplendent train of attendants, and the 
 
26 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 sweet Pleiades ; there, too, flamed Canicula and Procyon, 
 beneath whose rival fires the beautiful star of evening had 
 long since sunk from view ; Leo with his glorious sickle 
 followed in the train, and thousands on thousands of starry- 
 lamps lent their brightness to light up the vast firmament 
 that canopied the silent eartli, silent, for sleep had exerted 
 its restoring influence upon all save the sick and sorrowing. 
 I turned reluctantly again to seek my weary couch. With 
 feelings of gratitude to my God for all his past goodness 
 and humble trust in his future care, I laid my head on my 
 pillow, and though I could not sleep could meditate." 
 
 A more striking piece of unconscious self -portraiture 
 could hardly be quoted than this. The image of that 
 frail young woman rising on a cold winter night from 
 her bed, exhausted with coughing and the sharp pain 
 in her side, to seek her medicine, and suddenly finding 
 relief in the sublime pageant of the midnight heavens, 
 and in the adoration of the God whose glory it de- 
 clared, this image indelibly stamped on the mind 
 will give the keynote to a life that was destined to be 
 a perpetual rising from pain and weariness to the be- 
 holding of a vision so transcendent in promised bless- 
 ing for humanity as to inspire her with fairly super- 
 natural strength. But not yet was her day of stern 
 training over. Still farther must she learn to endure 
 hardness as a good soldier of Christ ; still farther to 
 school an impatient and indomitable will to wait on 
 the ordination of a Higher Power. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE ISLAND OF ST. CROIX. 
 
 IN alternation between summers spent with the 
 family of Dr. Channing in Portsmouth, E. L, inter- 
 mittent attempts at teaching, as in the then famous 
 Fowle Monitorial School, and winters passed in more 
 southern latitudes, the years went by till, in the au- 
 tumn of 1830, Miss Dix was invited by Dr. Channing 
 to accompany his household, as instructress of his 
 children, to the tropical island of St. Croix, in which 
 he was himself to seek the recuperation of his greatly 
 impaired health. The party sailed in the schooner 
 Rice Plant from Boston, November 20, 1830, reaching 
 their destination after a short and prosperous voyage. 
 St. Croix, one of the West India Islands, belonging 
 to Denmark, enjoyed in those days such repute for 
 salubrity of climate as to be much sought as a refuge 
 by delicate and consumptive patients from the United 
 States. Twenty-three miles long by six in width, and 
 crowned by the eminence of Blue Mountain rising to a 
 height of eleven hundred feet, the proportion of land 
 to the surrounding extent of the ocean made residence 
 on it almost like being at sea. 
 
 A visit to the tropics had been looked forward to by 
 Miss Dix with intense delight. Now she would see 
 with her own eyes an utterly new flora and fauna, a 
 literal paradise of trailing vines, palms, bananas, 
 rare birds, shells, and marine plants. Indeed, it seems 
 
28 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 here the most fitting place again to call attention to 
 that vivid interest in all the branches of natural his- 
 tory, which unquestionably would have asserted itself 
 as the dominant passion of her mind, had it not been 
 overmastered by the still stronger passion for conse- 
 crating herself to the relief of human suffering. All 
 through life, the prospect of snatching an hour from 
 pressing cares for the criminal and the insane, to de- 
 vote to studying in its native habitat a new plant, 
 new seaweed, or new shellfish, or for observing any- 
 thing before unseen in a Bay of Fundy tide, or a re- 
 markable geological formation, excited in her an en- 
 thusiasm nothing could call her off from but the cry 
 of human misery. What she might have achieved, 
 had her indomitable energy been permanently turned 
 in the direction of natural science, it is impossible to 
 say. Certain it is, there would have been no crater, 
 however deep and sulphurous, into which her courage 
 would have shrunk from descending ; no marsh, how- 
 ever malarious, that would have hidden from her the 
 secret of its most secluded moss or peat-flower. 
 
 Arriving now in the actual tropics, and with all her 
 Northern energy on the alert for fresh achievement, 
 Miss Dix unexpectedly found herself brought face to 
 face with a lesson in human nature, which began a 
 modification of character in her it took years to work 
 out. So far in life the uncompromising champion of 
 the power of the human will to rise superior to cir- 
 cumstances of every kind, great was her dismay and 
 mortification at finding herself for a time the passive 
 victim of a purely physical environment. Before this 
 date, indeed, stern experience had forced her to admit 
 the indisputable fact that the lungs might become in- 
 flamed, and a sharp, burning pain transfix the side. 
 
THE ISLAND OF ST. CROIX. 29 
 
 But this only meant that one could no longer use the 
 voice for teaching. One could still study, write, mas- 
 ter fresh knowledge, meditate, and pray. But now she 
 had to succumb utterly to an invisible and intangible 
 foe on which she could get no purchase, to simple, 
 tropical climate. Pain could be fought, but languor, 
 an utter languor of desire and will, which blunted 
 every weapon she had been used to wield and made 
 the arm nerveless to grasp it, here was something 
 which baffled her utterly. 
 
 Indeed, of this entirely new phase of experience 
 Miss Dix speaks feelingly in a letter to her friend, 
 Mrs. Samuel Torrey, to whom she writes : 
 
 " Another letter from you, my dear friend, impels me to 
 take up my pen. I think that this incitement would not 
 have been needed, had I been under any other influence 
 than this before-named languor. Our darling Mary says, 
 * How changed Miss Dix is ! She used always to be busy, 
 and now she only says, Don't talk to me ! and throws herself 
 on the bed twenty times a day.' I am also the unfortunate 
 subject of Dr. Channing's jests. ' My dear,' he says to 
 Mrs. C., ' where can Miss Dix be ? But I need not ask, 
 doubtless very busy, as usual. Pray, what is that I see on 
 yonder sofa, some object shrouded in white ? Oh ! that is 
 Miss Dix, after all. Well, well, tell it not in Gath ! How- 
 are the mighty fallen ! ' All this I bear, but I am rising 
 above it in more than one sense. I am really getting well, 
 or well over this vexatious no-disease that does nothing, 
 thinks nothing, is nothing." 
 
 It is of interest here to ask what was the impression 
 made on a mind so sympathetic with human suffering, 
 and so resolute to champion its cause, by this her first 
 actual contact with African slavery. Judging from 
 her letters, it was an experience not at all uncommon 
 
30 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 with persons of her peculiar type of character. Ar. 
 riving in the tropics from the bleak North, with a 
 mind long strained to the highest tension in the pur- 
 suit of moral ideals, the abysmal gulf that opened 
 up between the careless, dancing, morally irresponsi- 
 ble Africans, and any class of human beings she had 
 up to this time ever fallen in with, seems to have diz- 
 zied her in all her previous standards of judgment. 
 Like Northern people in general on their first 
 acquaintance with far Southern life, she too was com- 
 pletely carried away with the fascination of a sponta- 
 neity, grace, and spirit of pure, physical light-hearted- 
 ness, of which the North affords scarcely a trace. The 
 rigid New England school-mistress element in her na- 
 ture is for a time thawed and dissolved away, giving 
 place to an opposite extreme. Morality is still to her 
 the glorious crown of humanity in Massachusetts, but 
 as for St. Croix and among the negro slaves, is it to 
 be rationally looked for there ? 
 
 " You have no idea [she writes to her friend Mrs. Tor- 
 rey] how interesting the negroes are here. They have 
 not, what we are used to seeing in the descendants of Afri- 
 cans at the North, coarse features and clumsy gait and 
 rough voices. They are, in general, handsome, much above 
 the generality of the whites, with very fine figures, and 
 graceful beyond anything I have ever seen. Their voices 
 in conversation are musical and their manners respectful. 
 Sometimes their accents, especially those of the children, are 
 soft and plaintive, touching the heart. For all this they are 
 in reality cheerful and happy. . . . They are the most 
 graceful dancers imaginable. They never make a false 
 step, and there is a heartiness, simplicity, and ease with 
 which they sustain their favorite amusement that draws the 
 spectator into the most lively enjoyment of the exhilarating 
 scene. ... I cannot regard these subjected beings as re- 
 
THE ISLAND OF ST. CROIX. 31 
 
 sponsible for any immoralities. Taking into consideration 
 all the circumstances in which they are placed, I would by 
 no means teach them the distinctions of right and wrong. 
 1 should not enlighten them, only to insure a tenfold wretch- 
 edness Jiere, and perhaps not make any progress in aiding 
 them to be happier hereafter. They are not free agents. 
 Their managers, overseers, and too often their owners are 
 very corrupt, and the slaves are within and under their con- 
 trol." 
 
 Later on, however, it is clear from Miss Dix's let- 
 ters that this peculiar fascination exerted on tense 
 New England minds by their first contact with pure 
 physical gayety of temperament is fast wearing away, 
 and that her old moral standards are again powerfully 
 reasserting themselves. She is manifestly triumph- 
 ing, as she said she soon should, over " this vexatious 
 no-disease that does nothing, thinks nothing, is noth- 
 ing," and now writes in the following strain to Mrs. 
 Torrey : 
 
 " Your view of slavery corresponds with my own. * Dis- 
 guise thyself as thou wilt, still, Slavery, still thou art a bit- 
 ter draught,' and human nature will not wear thy chains 
 without cursing the ground for the enslaver's sake. 'His 
 gold shall perish with him,' would seem to be the mildest 
 language of Justice ; but whatever be the form, or however 
 remote the time, sure am I that a retribution will fall on the 
 slave-merchant, the slave-holder, and their children to the 
 fourth generation. As I regard the hundreds around me 
 for life subjected to bondage, I am tempted to ask, when 
 they commit a fault, * Do these men sin, or their masters ? ' 
 . . . These beings, I repeat, cannot be Christians, they can- 
 not act as moral beings, they cannot live as souls destined to 
 immortality. Who, then, shall pay the awful price of their 
 sours redemption ? Who but those who have hidden from 
 them the bread of life and sealed up from them the foun- 
 tains of living waters, who have darkened the dark mind 
 
82 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 and obscured the clouded powers of thought? Oh for 
 a Jeremiah to cry, ' Woe ! woe ! ' ere total destruction 
 cometh ! Oh for the inspirations of an Isaiah to pierce 
 the hardened with the arrows of timely repentance ! No 
 blessing, no good, can follow in the path trodden by slavery. 
 No door of mercy opens for him whose soul is stained by 
 unnumbered sins committed by others through his agency." 
 
 It has been of importance to dwell on this personal 
 experience of the enervating effect wrought by trop- 
 ical languor on the most exceptional energy of North- 
 ern will, because it is very evident that the winter 
 spent on the island of St. Croix, and the full year 
 or more of languishing illness she later on was to 
 go through with in Liverpool, England, wrought in 
 Miss Dix a gradually developing modification of view. 
 These were the first great experiences that fixed her 
 attention on a class of positive phenomena lying 
 largely outside the control of the human will, through 
 the clear recognition alone of which it became pos- 
 sible to her to allow more largely for physical and 
 moral imperfections and infirmities. Her standard of 
 judgment was rendered by them less an absolute and 
 immutable Procrustes bed, on which all alike must be 
 stretched and cut to a uniform pattern. 
 
 Toward herself, indeed, and the demands she through 
 life made on her own flesh and blood, she remained 
 inexorable. But she came finally to see that she 
 " differed from others/' and that she was a being 
 apart, with a law of her own to obey. Gradually, 
 though only gradually, the disposition lessened in her 
 to insist on her own almost superhuman standard of 
 self-sacrifice as the rule, or even possibility, for 
 others. And so at last, when she had sounded the 
 awful depths of her own great mission of mercy, and 
 paid the full tribute of the blood-money exacted, it 
 
THE ISLAND OF ST. CR01X. 33 
 
 came to be with her as with that kindred spirit Eliza- 
 beth Fry, whose daughters have recorded in the biog- 
 raphy they wrote of her : 
 
 " She would have shrunk from urging the same course on 
 others. She feared her daughters and other young women 
 generally undertaking questionable or difficult public offices. 
 She laid great stress on the outward circumstances of life : 
 how and where providentially placed ; the opportunities af- 
 forded ; the powers given. . . . She did not consider this 
 call to be general, or to apply to persons under an adminis- 
 tration different from her own." 
 
 How complete, however, was, in Miss Dix's own 
 case, the triumph over tropical languor there is ample 
 evidence in the journals and notebooks she brought 
 back with her to New England. They show an ex- 
 haustive study of all the physical features of the isl- 
 and, and embrace full catalogues of its native and 
 cultivated plants, trees, and crops, of its marine flora 
 and fauna. So valuable were, moreover, the collec- 
 tions of specimens she laboriously made that presents 
 of portions of them to such scientific men as Professor 
 Benjamin Silliman, Audubon, and others brought her 
 the most cordial letters of thanks and praise. Besides, 
 while at St. Croix, she evidently did a large amount of 
 reading. Very characteristic is it, as one turns the 
 pages of these notebooks, now yellow with the time- 
 stain of sixty years, to see how diligently she wrote out 
 full extracts from the saints and sages of all periods 
 and all lands, whose words bore on the right conduct 
 human life. These extracts are from Hindoo, Per- 
 sian, Greek, and Christian sources. Though herself 
 the most orthodox of the earlier type of Unitarianism, 
 her inner life was of too genuine a strain to resist the 
 witness of the spirit, in whatsoever land or under 
 whatsoever dispensation it was breathed abroad. 
 
34 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 In a letter to the writer of this biography, Mrs. 
 Mary C. Eustis, the daughter of Dr. Channing, re- 
 cords in the following words her own recollections of 
 Miss Dix at the time of the winter in St. Croix, and 
 of the summers at her father's country-seat in Ports- 
 mouth, R. I. : 
 
 "N* ' She was tall and dignified, but stooped somewhat, was 
 very shy in her manners, and colored extremely when ad- 
 dressed. This may surprise you who knew her only in 
 later life, when she was completely self-possessed and reli- 
 ant. . . . She was strict and inflexible in her discipline, 
 which we her pupils disliked extremely at the time, but for 
 which I have been grateful as I have grown older and 
 found how much I was indebted to that iron will from 
 which it was hopeless to appeal, but which I suppose was 
 not unreasonable, as I find my father expressing great satis- 
 faction with her tuition of her pupils. ... I think she was 
 a very accomplished teacher, active and diligent herself, 
 very fond of natural history and botany. She enjoyed long 
 rambles, always calling our attention to what was of inter- 
 est in the world around us. I hear that some of her pupils 
 speak of her as irascible. I have no such remembrance. 
 Fixed as fate we considered her. 
 
 " We all became much attached to her, and she was our 
 dear and valued friend, and most welcome guest in all our 
 homes. She was a very religious woman, without a particle 
 of sectarianism or bigotry. At the little Union Meeting- 
 house which adjoined Oakland, our place on Rhode Island, 
 Miss Dix -always had the class of troublesome men and 
 boys, who succumbed to her charm of manner and firm will. 
 Later on, after the death of her grandmother, she was a 
 constant visitor at our house. She delighted to drop in 
 unexpectedly, and then suddenly receiving a letter from a 
 poor soldier at Fort Adams, would start off at a moment's 
 notice to right his wrong and persuade the government to 
 improve the arrangements for the comfort of the men." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE MODEL SCHOOL AND ITS PENALTY. 
 
 RETUKNING home from St. Croix in the late spring 
 of 1831, Miss Dix, in the ensuing autumn, entered 
 seriously on the work of establishing the kind of 
 model boarding and day school for girls which should 
 satisfy the high-wrought ideal that filled her mind. 
 Once again she found herself settled in the old Dix 
 Mansion, her now well-grown brothers with her, and 
 health sufficiently improved to warrant, she felt, any 
 degree of prodigal expenditure of precious life-force. 
 
 Flinging herself with her old intensity into the 
 work, rising before the sun and rarely in bed till after 
 midnight, no long time passed before she made her 
 mark, and secured from prominent families in Boston 
 and from distant places as many pupils as she could 
 take in charge. Health or no health, there were two 
 grand objects she was now indomitably set on effecting. 
 
 First, she would achieve pecuniary independence. 
 To the full she appreciated the value of a moderate 
 competence to any one who would be free to carry out 
 self-chosen plans in life. The misery and humilia- 
 tion entailed by impracticability and shiftlessness had 
 been from childhood burned into her soul. Thus 
 from the outset she showed herself a superior business 
 manager. Generous to the last extreme in giving 
 away money, her school containing always a num- 
 ber of non-paying pupils, and a charity school in addi- 
 
36 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 tion being largely maintained by her, she none the 
 less held tenaciously to the idea that the money she 
 gave away should be her own money. To the end of 
 life she entertained a sovereign contempt for people 
 who got their living out of benevolent enterprises, 
 and selfishly foisted themselves, in the holy name of 
 charity, as an added burden on the community. 
 
 Along, however, with this determination to secure 
 personal independence there went the resolve to sub- 
 ordinate every desire for leisure and exemption from 
 pain to working for what she deemed the highest good 
 of her pupils. No heart of the day shared more fully 
 than hers the enthusiastic faith of that great awaken- 
 ing in Massachusetts, which, fostered especially by 
 the glowing visions of the future for humanity, of the 
 preaching of Dr. Channing, was prophesying the ad- 
 vent of a new day in education and reform. " The 
 dignity of human nature," its power, under God, to 
 rise to heights never before dreamed of but in the 
 visions of saints, this had been Dr. Channing's in- 
 spiring battle-cry. In all this, her own ardent aspira- 
 tions had been still farther stimulated by the flaming 
 eloquence of Dr. Channing's colleague, Rev. Ezra 
 Stiles Gannett, a man equally ready with herself to 
 trample the body under foot, and live a daily sacrifice 
 in infirmity and pain to the cause he fervidly cher- 
 ished. 
 
 For the realization of these prophetic hopes, the 
 place of all others for work now seemed to Miss Dix 
 the school. She did not yet know herself or the com- 
 manding powers that were slumbering in her. Com- 
 ing events alone were to reveal these. But in the 
 school could be gathered together the children un- 
 spotted from the world, and in the susceptible soil of 
 
THE MODEL SCHOOL AND ITS PENALTY. 37 
 
 their natures could be sown the seed of the coming 
 glorious harvest. None the less it must be frankly 
 admitted that she could never fully enter into the ex- 
 perience of average children, their exuberance of 
 purely animal life, their suffering under concentra- 
 tion and restraint, their utter immaturity of intellect 
 and conscience. To themselves, they seemed here on 
 earth to enjoy the fun life was made for ; to her, to 
 prepare to become the mothers, teachers, daughters of 
 charity of the world. Alas ! she had never been an 
 average child herself. She had been premature child- 
 mother, premature battler with the stern problem of 
 life. And so, out of the lack of this essential experi- 
 ence was to grow the one grave drawback to the 
 character of the influence she exerted in the school, 
 great and salutary as was that influence, and as it is, 
 even to this day, recognized to have been by the de- 
 cided majority of her pupils who are still living. 
 
 " The arrangements of the school," writes a former 
 pupil of it, " were very primitive, no desks for the 
 girls, only a long table through the middle of the 
 room, at which we sat for meals, and at which it was 
 very inconvenient to write." The studies as was 
 common in those days embraced a rather limited 
 range of subjects. Spelling, arithmetic, and composi- 
 tion were rigorously and accurately taught, as well as 
 geography and history, while a French teacher gave 
 the only instruction in any other language but Eng- 
 lish, unless exception be made in favor of a little ele- 
 mentary Latin. Perhaps far more than in most 
 schools of the period, attention was paid to the teach- 
 ing of physics and natural history. The main stress, 
 however, was laid on the formation of moral and re- 
 ligious character. 
 
38 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 Here lay the overpowering consideration with the 
 teacher. No mere acquisition of knowledge was of 
 any value in her eyes in comparison with a longing to 
 dedicate it to the service of humanity. In this re- 
 spect, the conduct of the school was well-nigh monas- 
 tic. Unceasing effort was paid to leading the children 
 to the formation of habits of introspection. The 
 kingdom of good and of evil within, the probing its 
 depths and the recognition of the eternal distinction 
 between the two, this was to her the one shape of 
 knowledge that made the turning point of the soul in 
 time and in eternity. And so on the mantelshelf of 
 the study room there lay always a certain shell, a 
 kind of ear of God, into which, daily if possible, let- 
 ters were to be dropped, recording the results of care- 
 ful self-examination, letters to which Miss Dix 
 would sit up till after midnight writing answers. 
 Moreover, to this was later on added a Saturday even- 
 ing provision for private interviews of the most sol- 
 emn and searching nature between pupils and teacher, 
 a kind of Protestant version of the Roman Catholic 
 system of the confessional. 
 
 That too great strain was thus put on the sensibili- 
 ties and conscience of the more earnest children by 
 this close spiritual touch with so morally exacting a 
 nature, there can be little question. And yet in reply 
 to minute inquiries from the writer of this biography, 
 the majority of the still living pupils insist that, while 
 overstimulated at the time, they were none the less 
 spiritually revolutionized by these seasons of close 
 personal contact, and that to her they owe the best 
 they have ever done in life. Others, however, seem 
 to retain none but painful and even bitter memories 
 of their early relation with one the stress of whose 
 
THE MODEL SCHOOL AND ITS PENALTY. 39 
 
 immense demand was farther accentuated by the inev- 
 itable bodily penalties of exhaustion, sleeplessness, and 
 pain entailed on her by overstrain. 
 
 Among the miscellaneous papers left behind after 
 the death of Miss Dix, there are large bundles of 
 child-letters of this period, which throw a varied 
 sometimes amusing and sometimes pathetic light 
 on the working of this system of education, the shell 
 post-office department of it especially. These letters 
 are but straws indeed. But straws show how the 
 wind blows or the current sets, and so have a value 
 greater than their own. Here, then, is one of them, 
 from a little girl, highly pleased, evidently, at the pros- 
 pect of spiritual treasures in store for her. The Italics 
 so freely used in these letters are retained as too 
 indicative of emphatic states of mind to be spared. 
 
 " Please write me a note, dear teacher. I send you the 
 paper in hopes that you will : do, please ! The casket is 
 ready, please fill it with jewels. 
 
 " Your child, MOLLY." 
 
 Next comes a letter from a youthful aspirant man- 
 ifestly bent on putting bark and iron into a flagging 
 will: 
 
 " You know, dear Miss Dix, that I told you just now that 
 I could not do my composition, and is n't it singular I just 
 read in Martha's letter BorridilFs quotation from Mr. Gan- 
 nett's sermon, ' An iron will can accomplish everything.' 
 Dear Miss Dix, I will have this ' iron will,' and I will do 
 and be all you expect from your child." 
 
 A third example summons vividly before the mind 
 a little girl so actually seething with ambition to suc- 
 ceed that the power of language fails, and has to be 
 eked out with a bristling abatis of exclamation points. 
 
40 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 " AUNTY, SWEET, VERY DEAR, SWEET AUNTY, You 
 asked me just now who I was Writing to. I did not Ans T 
 you on purpose. Aunty ! Aunty ! ! do you think I shall ! 
 shall ! get my Bible ! ! ! I waitt to be a good girl so ! ! ! 
 Don't you want me to ! I know you do, do, do ! Aunty ! ! ! 
 Now, Aunty, I want to be good very much, and i '1 tell you 
 what, let 's you and I never speak together, but write little 
 notes all the time. Tomorrow morning I want to find a 
 little note on my pillow, if you ! are not busy. Goodbye, 
 dear Aunty." 
 
 Surely, this last letter gives evidence of a child- 
 nature much more enthusiastically stimulated than 
 overawed by the shell post-office system. The two 
 next, however, are characteristic specimens of the more 
 pathetic ones, of which there were many : 
 
 " You wished me to he very frank with you, and tell you 
 my feelings. I feel the need of some one to whom I can 
 pour forth my feelings, they have been pent up so long. 
 You may, perhaps, laugh when I tell you I have a disease, 
 not of body but of mind. This is unhappiness. Can you 
 tell me of anything to cure it ? If you can, I shall indeed 
 he very glad. I am in constant fear of my lessons, I am 
 so afraid I shall miss them. And I think that if I do, I 
 shall lose my place in the school, and you will be displeased 
 with me." 
 
 II. 
 
 " I thought I was doing very well until I read your letter, 
 but when you said that you were ' rousing to greater en- 
 ergy,' all my self-satisfaction vanished. For if you are not 
 satisfied in some measure with yourself, and are going to do 
 more than you have done, I don't know what I shall do. 
 You do not go to rest until midnight, and then you rise 
 very early." 
 
THE MODEL SCHOOL AND ITS PENALTY. 41 
 
 These juvenile effusions sufficiently indicate the 
 varied nature of the effect produced by Miss Dix's 
 personality and methods on children of different tem- 
 peraments. To them, may be added an extract from 
 a letter written nearly sixty years later : 
 
 " I was in my sixteenth year, 1833 [writes to Miss Dix's 
 biographer Mrs. Margaret J. W. Merrill, of Portland, 
 Me.], when my father placed me at her school. She fasci- 
 nated me from the first, as she had done many of my class 
 before me. Next to my mother, I thought her the most 
 beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was in the prime of 
 her years, tall and of dignified carriage, head finely shaped 
 and set, with an abundance of soft, wavy, brown hair." 
 
 For a period of five years the school continued in 
 full tide of success, the unflinching will of Miss Dix 
 dragging her frail body through the weariness and 
 suffering involved. At last, however, in the spring 
 of 1836, she broke down utterly. Haemorrhages re- 
 curred, the old pain in the side seemed fixed, as though 
 a splintered lance were there, and her exhausted 
 nerves would respond no farther. 
 
 She had achieved her cherished ends, though at a 
 fearful cost. Her labors had secured for her the in- 
 dependence of a modest competence ; she had made a 
 home for, educated, and embarked in the world her 
 younger brothers ; l she had won a position of dignity 
 and respect as a teacher, and had set a stamp never 
 to be effaced on a large number of young minds. 
 Only it looked as though she had been self-slain in 
 the process. 
 
 1 1. Charles W. Graduated at the Boston Latin School, 1832 ; died 
 on the western coast of Africa in 1843, on board the ship he com- 
 manded. 
 
 2. Joseph. Became a prosperous merchant in Boston. 
 
42 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 She herself, however, looked back with no relentings 
 on the physical and moral excesses of her past. 'The 
 stake for which she had played seemed to her emi- 
 nently an honorable one, and to have been necessi- 
 tated by the stern conditions thrust on her by her lot 
 in life. A spirit of martyr exaltation sustained her 
 in the consciousness that she had never flinched till 
 she fell helpless to the ground. 
 
 Summing up, then, the impression left by a careful 
 study of the life of Dorothea L. Dix to the age of thirty- 
 three, it seems inevitable to say that it was at once a 
 life devout and heroic in purpose, and a life marred 
 by willful overstrain. A hectic fever had long been 
 running in her blood, which raised to a perilous in- 
 tensity the self-sacrificing impulses and the moral and 
 religious ardor of her temperament. She had as yet 
 learned no law of limit. Dr. Channing had put his 
 finger on the very spot when he wrote her, " The in- 
 firmity of which I warn you, though one of good 
 minds, is an infirmity." Later she was to learn a 
 very different lesson. But it was a lesson that always 
 came hard to her personally ; tenderly and pitifully, 
 as she was brought to recognize its import in the case 
 of others. 
 
 Still, even in the midst of these needful strictures, 
 let it in simple justice be borne in mind that we are 
 here dealing with a nature of extraordinary capacity, 
 force, and fire, thus far set to tasks that gave no scope 
 to its splendid energies. The mental and moral pow- 
 ers which, after once they had found their adequate 
 field of action, were to sweep irresistibly before her 
 the legislatures of more than twenty great States 
 of the Union, which were again and again to carry 
 by storm the Senate and House of Representatives of 
 
THE MODEL SCHOOL AND ITS PENALTY. 43 
 
 the Federal Congress in Washington, and which, in 
 Europe, were to win a like triumph in the British 
 Parliament, and to revolutionize the lunacy legislation 
 of Scotland, mental and moral powers of such an 
 order had so far been set only to the petty task of 
 teaching, disciplining, and stimulating twenty or thirty 
 average children. It was like seeking to dwarf into 
 the hull of a little launch a marine engine powerful 
 enough to drive an ocean steamship, in the teeth of 
 the roughest gales, across the Atlantic. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 IN LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND. 
 
 So complete was the state of prostration in which 
 Miss Dix was left by the collapse of her powers in the 
 spring of 1836 that her physicians insisted on the 
 abandonment of every thought, present or prospective, 
 of farther schoo!4ieeping. It had become a question 
 of life or death. The immediate necessity was entire 
 change of scene and climate. To this end a sea 
 voyage to England was prescribed, where she should 
 spend the summer, and in the autumn seek the milder 
 climate of the south of France or of Italy. Provided, 
 accordingly, with letters of introduction from Dr. 
 William E. Channing and other influential persons, 
 she set sail from New York for Liverpool, April 22, 
 in company with Mr. and Mrs. Frank Schroder and 
 Mr. and Mrs. Ferrer, friends who watched over her 
 on the voyage with all care and tenderness. It was 
 her intention, on landing, to spend several months in 
 England, and, later on, to rejoin the Ferrers some- 
 where on the Continent. 
 
 Once again was all choice of plans taken out of her 
 hands. After her arrival in Liverpool, it became 
 clear that she was in too suffering a condition for 
 either travel or sight-seeing, and forlorn enough would 
 now have been her situation but for the providential 
 kindness of new-made English friends. Fortunately, 
 among the letters of introduction from Dr. Channing 
 
IN LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND. 45 
 
 was one to the family of Mr. William Rathbone, of 
 Liverpool, a merchant of wealth and high standing, 
 a prominent Unitarian, and identified with every good 
 cause of benevolence and reform. Calling upon the 
 stranger invalid at the hotel where she lay ill, Mr. 
 and Mrs. Rathbone at once insisted on her removal 
 to their own residence, Greenbank, some three miles 
 outside the city, and to this charming place and to the 
 hearts of the family was she now taken. 
 
 It was, certainly, with no thought of remaining 
 there longer than a few weeks that Miss Dix became 
 an inmate of the Rathbone household. In reality, 
 with short intervals of change, it was to be for full 
 eighteen months. Frequent hemorrhages set in, and 
 so great was the exhaustion attendant upon them that 
 much of her time had to be spent in bed or on her 
 lounge. And yet, to the end of her days, this period 
 of eighteen months stood out in her memory as the 
 jubilee year of her life, the sunniest, the most restful, 
 and the tenderest to her affections of her whole earthly 
 experience. 
 
 To the strenuous invalid, nursed in the school of 
 stern self-abnegation, there was nothing in the Scrip- 
 " ture maxim, " It is more blessed to give than to re- 
 ceive," which she did not thoroughly indorse and 
 gladly practice. By nature, however, it came very 
 hard to her as always in the instance of overpower- 
 ingly active and self -helpful characters to reverse 
 this maxim, and recognize that the day surely comes 
 to every poor worn and weary mortal when it should 
 with equal devoutness be acknowledged how much 
 more blessed it is to receive than to give. But during 
 the whole year of 1836-37 Miss Dix, as her letters show, 
 evidently lived on the mountain-top of this reversed 
 
46 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 beatitude. It was the one only long holiday she ever 
 knew in life. She threw off care and ceased to plan, 
 she lovingly resigned herself and her shrouded future 
 into the hands of God, while her heart overflowed with 
 gratitude for the love with which she found herself cher- 
 ished by the whole devoted household. The " Storm 
 and Stress Period" of her life seemed over, and, 
 spite of illness, perhaps even more on its very account, 
 the ardent and romantic fervor of affection, so deep- 
 seated underneath her self-controlled exterior, together 
 with her native delight in refinement, culture, and 
 social charm, now found free vent. It is, accordingly, 
 in the following happy state of mind that we find her 
 writing, October 1, 1836, to her friend, Mrs. Samuel 
 Torrey of Boston : 
 
 '' You know I am ill. You must imagine me surrounded 
 by every comfort, sustained by every tenderness that can 
 cheer, blest in the continual kindness of the family in which 
 Providence has placed me, I, with no claims but those of 
 our common nature. Here I am contracting continually 
 a debt of gratitude which time will never see canceled. 
 There is a treasury from which it will be repaid, but I do 
 not dispense its stores. I write from my bed, leaning on 
 pillows in a very Oriental luxury of position, one which 
 I think will soon fall into a fixed habit." 
 
 Not, however, without the persistent application of 
 strong counter-irritants on the part of her Puritan 
 grandmother in Boston was Miss Dix allowed to sur- 
 render herself to this blissful state of Nirvana. The 
 bare elements of the situation shocked every sense of 
 propriety in the rigid old lady, who had herself been 
 brought up in the inflexible early New England creed 
 that the one and only befitting posture for a triumph- 
 ant Christian consumptive to die in was sitting bolt 
 
IN LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND. 47 
 
 upright in a straight-backed chair, maintaining so 
 long as consciousness survived a clear two inches of 
 space between the person and any terrestrial proffer 
 of support. To her, then, it seemed simply incredi- 
 ble, an outright moral fall, that a granddaughter of 
 her own should actually consent to stay on month 
 after month in a strange household, where she could 
 render no kind of equivalent in service for the trouble 
 and expense to which she must be subjecting every- 
 body. Little could the primitive old lady take it 
 in, that the very reason why the grateful invalid at 
 Greenbank was so luxuriating in her life there, grew 
 out of the fact that now for the first time in her ex- 
 perience her nature was blossoming out in an atmos- 
 phere of free, spontaneous love. 
 
 Only natural, then, is it to find her writing back to 
 her grandmother in Boston in a strain that shows how 
 deeply her feelings had been hurt. 
 
 " I have felt the obligation to my friends in England so 
 exclusively my own that it was not less surprising than pain- 
 ful to know you indulged so much solicitude on that point. 
 . . . There is a danger, perhaps, of my getting a little 
 spoiled by so much caressing and petting, but I must try to do 
 without it if I get better. So completely am I adopted into 
 this circle of loving spirits that I sometimes forget I really 
 am not to consider the bonds transient in their bindino-." 
 
 O 
 
 Likewise to her Boston friend, Mrs. Samuel Tor- 
 rey, she writes in a similar strain : 
 
 " You know all my habits through life have been singu- 
 larly removed from any condition of reliance on others, 
 and the feeling, right or wrong, that aloneness is my proper 
 position has prevailed since my early childhood, no doubt 
 nourished and strengthened by many and quick-following 
 bereavements." 
 
48 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 At the time of Miss Dix's first visit to England, 
 communication between Europe and America was a 
 very different thing from what it now is. The day of 
 steamships lay still in the future, and not yet was the 
 Atlantic turned into a simple ferry, across which 
 boats ply daily at stated hours of departure and arri- 
 val. Sometimes eighteen days sufficed to bring let- 
 ters, while at others two full months must pass with- 
 out the relief of any intelligence from home. Miss 
 Dix's experience was destined to be the common one 
 of those abroad. Before very long, news of the in- 
 evitable changes wrought by death began to arrive. 
 Thus, September 28, 1836, Mrs. H. S. Hayward, of 
 Boston, writes to inform the invalid of the sudden 
 death of her mother, in Fitzwilliam, N. H. : 
 
 " The remembrance of duties so faithfully performed, and 
 the consciousness that you could have done nothing more 
 had you been at home, will be a comfort to you. Your 
 mother's departure was so unexpected that even those in the 
 room were totally unprepared ; no sickness nor suffering, 
 but a sudden summons to go to her rest after a life of suf- 
 fering from a lingering disease." 
 
 The intelligence of her mother's death was the open- 
 ing afresh of an old wound in the heart of Miss Dix, 
 awakening once more the sense of passionate grief she 
 cherished throughout life at never having known in 
 childhood the blessedness of a happy and loving 
 home, a grief rendered all the intenser now through 
 daily communion with scenes of domestic joy. For 
 long years, one additional reason for the excessive over- 
 strain she had subjected herself to had grown out of 
 the necessity of contributing to the maintenance of 
 her mother. 
 
/AT LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND. 49 
 
 He would have been a bold prophet who should in 
 those days have bade the suffering invalid look for- 
 ward to well nigh fifty years of such extraordinary 
 achievement as to amaze all who came in contact with 
 her. As late as January 25, 1837, nearly nine 
 months after her arrival in England, she writes her 
 friend Miss Heath : 
 
 " I have been very ill from the middle of November till 
 the past week, but have just now less pain in the side, dimin- 
 ished cough, and, on the whole, an accession of strength. 
 This week, for the first time since September, the physician 
 gave me permission to walk about the room several times 
 daily. It is ten days since the last spitting of blood, and 
 altogether I am quite comfortable ; at least, I may say, 
 happy and grateful for the manifold blessings of my condi- 
 tion." 
 
 Later on, however, in Miss Dix's stay in England, 
 the improvement of her health grew steadily more 
 marked, and during the last part of her sojourn at 
 Greenbank, as well as on the occasion of visits to 
 other friends, she was able to enjoy a good deal of 
 social intercourse with people of intellectual and 
 moral superiority. Of the privilege of this she writes 
 enthusiastically to Miss Heath : 
 
 " Of my English friends, I should find language too poor 
 to speak the just praise, and the excellence which shines in 
 their characters and lives. Your remark that I probably 
 enjoy more now in social intercourse than I have ever before 
 done is quite true. Certainly, if I do not improve, it will 
 be through willful self-neglect." 
 
 Before closing the narrative of this especial episode 
 in the life of Miss Dix, it seems needful to add that 
 an untrue impression would be left on the mind un- 
 less emphatic attention were once again called to the 
 
50 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 sharpness of the pang it had cost her to renounce her 
 chosen career in Boston. The thought that any should 
 suppose she had weakly surrendered when the fiery 
 test came to her was nothing short of torture. Ac- 
 cordingly, when, as months on months of rest went by 
 without recuperation, her dearest home friends wrote 
 to her expressing wonder that she was not already 
 well, their words seemed to her little short of a moral 
 insult. 
 
 " I wish [she wrote to Mrs. Samuel Torrey] my home 
 friends expressed and felt less surprise at my not being re- 
 stored by a mere voyage. I thought they knew me well 
 enough to count more upon the resolution I could exercise 
 in keeping up when very ill than to have been so deceived 
 in supposing I would have laid down all my absorbing and 
 interesting duties so quietly, if the conviction had not been 
 too clear to admit a doubt that no effort could longer be 
 sustained. I feel it was right to go on as long as I did, and 
 right to pause only where and when I rested." 
 
 It is hard, under the actual circumstances of the 
 case, to read this characteristic letter without recalling 
 Browning's poem of the heroic boy who, wounded to 
 death, still clung to his horse's mane till he had dashed 
 up to Napoleon with the news that Ratisbon had been 
 stormed : 
 
 " So tight he kept his lips compressed, 
 
 Scarce any blood came through. 
 You looked twice ere you saw his breast 
 Was all but shot in two. 
 
 " ' You're wounded ! ' ' Nay,' his soldier's pride 
 
 Touched to the quick, he said : 
 ' I'm killed, Sire ! ' And, his chief beside, 
 
 Smiling the boy fell dead." 
 
 Before the return to America, the intelligence of 
 still another death was to reach Miss Dix. It was 
 
IN LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND. 51 
 
 that of her grandmother, at the advanced age of 
 ninety-one. This meant, of course, the breaking-up of 
 the only place she could look upon as home. " I feel 
 the event," she wrote in reply, " as having divided the 
 only link, save the yet closer one of fraternal bonds, 
 which allies me to kindred.'' 
 
 Miss Dix returned home some time in the autumn 
 of 1837, after an absence of over eighteen months. 
 While her health had greatly improved, it still had 
 not sufficiently to admit of her spending the winter in 
 the severe climate of New England. Happily, through 
 the will of her grandmother, a bequest had now come 
 to her, enough, with the earnings of her days of teach- 
 ing, to provide a competency for the moderate wants 
 of a single woman. She was thus made mistress of 
 her own time, and could for the rest of her days have 
 consulted simply the exigencies of health in the choice 
 of a place of residence, and have felt free to follow the 
 strong bent of her social and intellectual tastes. 
 
 The first necessity now, however, was to find a 
 milder climate for the coining winter. This she sought 
 partly in Washington, D. C., and partly at Oakland, 
 near Alexandria, Virginia. But the winter proved an 
 unhappy one to her. Her mind was in a restless state. 
 The same ill health that had forced her to give up the 
 school in which the chief interest of her life had cen- 
 tered now forbade her even thinking of resuming it. 
 She had parted her moorings, and was adrift on the 
 world. Nor was this all. In England she had tasted 
 the sweets of a new and fascinating experience. She 
 had basked in a sunny atmosphere of sympathy and 
 love, and had shared a life far fuller of charm and in- 
 tellectual stimulus than any to which she had previ- 
 ously been accustomed. New England, on her return, 
 
52 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L, DIX. 
 
 seemed to her raw, provincial, hard, and ugly, as, in- 
 deed, in those earlier days it was. There seemed no 
 place for any one who was not fitted into some regular 
 groove of work. Work was the one and only refuge, 
 and what work was there now for her ? All this in- 
 ward sense of restlessness and pain found poignant 
 expression in her letters at this period. 
 
 " I was not conscious [she writes from Washington, Feb- 
 ruary 24, 1838, to her friend Miss Heath] that so great a 
 trial was to meet my return from England, till the whole 
 force of the contrast was laid before me. Then, I confess, 
 it made an impression which will be ineffaceable. . . . Per- 
 haps it is in myself the fault chiefly lies. I may be too 
 sensitive ; I may hunger and thirst too eagerly for that cor- 
 dial, real regard which exists not in mere outward forms or 
 uttered sounds ; I may be too craving of that rich gift, the 
 power of sharing other minds. I have drunk deeply, long, 
 and oh ! how blissfully, at this fountain in a foreign clime. 
 Hearts met hearts, minds joined with minds ; and what were 
 the secondary trials of pain to the enfeebled, suffering body 
 when daily was administered the soul's medicine and food ! 
 Yes, beloved, ever too dearly beloved ones, we are divided, 
 and what but the deepness of sorrow, what but the weight 
 of grief, would rest on my soul, if the Future, the glorious 
 Future, the existence that knows no death, no pain nor sepa- 
 ration, were not seen in the long vista through which Faith 
 and Hope are the angelic conductors ! But there are duties 
 to be performed here. Life is not to be expended in vain 
 regrets. No day, no hour, comes but brings in its train 
 work to be performed for some useful end, the suffering 
 to be comforted, the wandering led home, the sinner re- 
 claimed. Oh ! how can any fold the hands to rest, and say 
 to the spirit, ' Take thine ease, for all is well' ! " 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE OLDER THEORIES OF INSANITY. 
 
 THE concluding words of the last chapter, "Oh! 
 how can any fold the hands to rest, and say to the spirit, 
 4 Take thine ease, for all is well ' ! " proved prophetic. 
 Before very long were her compassionate heart and 
 dauntless will to be brought face to face with an abyss 
 of human misery in the condition of the helpless and 
 outcast insane throughout the land, so appalling in 
 the scenes it opened up that from that day forward 
 till extreme old age had left her helpless there was to 
 be for her no more folding the hands. " Take thine 
 ease, for all is well ! " nay, much is most hideous, 
 a scandal to self -called Christianity, a heartbreak to 
 any one with a trace of pity ! Such was henceforth 
 the haunting cry of reality ceaselessly sounding in her 
 ears with its demand : " Woe ! woe ! if thou dost not 
 champion these outcast and miserable ones." Never 
 was a redeeming work entered on with a clearer, de- 
 vouter belief in a direct call from on high, or a more 
 unhesitating answer, " Here am I ; send me." 
 
 Great characters never appear isolated from all 
 sympathetic surroundings. They are more than ex- 
 traordinarily forceful individualities. They are indi- 
 vidualities lifted on the crest of some great tidal wave 
 of humanity. Did they come forward as simple inno- 
 vators, their work would soon be brought to naught 
 for lack of historic backing. It is to their high de- 
 
54 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 gree of receptibility, to their sympathetic power of 
 forecasting and co-working with forces then in the air, 
 that they owe their power of achieving such seemingly 
 miraculous results. 
 
 All important is it, therefore, before specifically en- 
 tering on the narrative of the life work in behalf of 
 the insane, to which Dorothea L. Dix now made haste 
 to dedicate herself with the self-sacrifice of a mar- 
 tyr and the religious fervor of a saint, to review as 
 briefly as possible, while yet with needful fullness and 
 circumstantiality, the exact state of things prevailing 
 in New England fifty years ago. Thus only can the 
 reader grasp a clear conception alike of the point of 
 departure and of the goal toward which everything 
 must be made to tend. It is a review which must 
 necessarily embrace the previous condition of theo- 
 logical thought and feeling in New England, together 
 with the strange, but very practical, bearing of this 
 thought, as well on the administration of penal law as 
 on the theory and treatment of a certain type of mys- 
 terious and awful disease. Such review must further 
 seek to contrast with all this the growing influence of 
 a new and different order of ideas, finally gathering 
 head and making themselves felt with revolutionary 
 power. In all her rationality, in all her enthusiasm 
 of humanity, in all her glowing faith in the birth of a 
 new epoch in human history, Miss Dix was the incar- 
 nation of the sanguine and prophetic spirit of her 
 time. 
 
 Throughout the whole earlier epoch of New Eng- 
 land history, the two grand forces which had wrought 
 together for the education of the people had been 
 politics and religion. The necessity of laying the 
 foundation of the state in what had been a previous 
 
THE OLDER THEORIES OF INSANITY. 55 
 
 wilderness, and of fostering its steady progress toward 
 maturity, had demanded a constant exercise of practi- 
 cal sagacity and devoted patriotism. And yet all this 
 so needful work had been regarded but as temporal 
 and material in its nature, and as strictly subsidiary 
 to something higher. In comparison with the over- 
 whelming realities of the supernatural world, the 
 claims of the present world were to be weighed but 
 as dust in the balance. To maintain in the minds of 
 the community a high -wrought and imaginatively 
 vivid sense of this eternal distinction had been the 
 unremitting aim of the powerful theological system of 
 Calvinism that dominated the great majority of the 
 people, a system, moreover, whose dogmas had been 
 enforced by a class of preachers of commanding intel- 
 lectual power and rare elevation of character. 
 
 Here, then, was an iron-linked system of theological 
 thought, which embodied elements in it fitted to pro- 
 duce, as it did produce, many and noble spiritual 
 results. In its favor must it be said that it had disci- 
 plined the mind to close reasoning on the profoundest 
 subjects ; it had put energy into the will ; it had led 
 to the scorn of sloth and ease, and had substituted for 
 these the stern sense of duty; it had developed, more- 
 over, in a select class of finely tempered souls a rapt 
 and mystic piety ; but along with these great advan- 
 tages, it had none the less always carried in its breast 
 other elements, whose inevitable tendency was to nar- 
 row, harden, and well-nigh annihilate the tenderer 
 and more compassionate qualities of human nature. 
 So vastly more frequently and incisively had the 
 righteous wrath of God been emphasized than his 
 redeeming love, that, logically enough, the majority 
 of men and women had been led to cultivate and 
 
56 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 morally approve in themselves the same inverted re- 
 lation between these two attributes which they wor- 
 shiped in their Deity. 
 
 r Inevitably, then, were the penal statutes of such 
 communities inexorably severe. The prisoner, an 
 outcast from the heart of God, became equally an out- 
 cast from the heart of society. The little he might 
 be called on to suffer in the jail from mouldy bread 
 and filthy water, from foul air and swarming vermin, 
 seemed so as nothing in comparison with the awful fate 
 awaiting him in eternity, as scarcely to be worthy of 
 consideration. Nor was it practically different with 
 the view taken of the condition of the actually insane. 
 Nay, in certain respects it was worse. The terrible 
 superstitions of the Middle Ages, which had always 
 sought the explanation of insanity in the idea of 
 diabolic possession, and had seen in its frenzies of 
 imprecation, filthiness, and blasphemy simply the 
 masterpiece of Satan, still hung like a lurid cloud 
 over the human mind. Slowly, slowly only, were the 
 conceptions outgrown which, in the days of the Salem 
 Witchcraft, had rendered possible the spectacle of an 
 outbreak of superstitious terror powerful enough to 
 transport to a pitch of frenzy not merely the ignorant 
 populace, but many of the foremost judges and divines 
 of the land. Such crazy fancies of hysteric women 
 as would to-day be treated with diet, sedatives, and 
 change of air were in those days treated, spiritually, 
 with the terrific anathemas of the church, and, judi- 
 cially or by mob law, with drowning in the river or 
 the hangman's noose. 
 
 Of course, as time went on and enlightenment grew 
 greater, the virulence of these Middle Age supersti- 
 tions steadily abated, though ever lingering in the 
 
THE OLDER THEORIES OF INSANITY. 57 
 
 background. Practical common sense began to make 
 some headway. Still, the real king who was finally 
 to dethrone these imaginary supernatural terrors had 
 not yet seated himself on the throne. The old theory 
 of insanity lingered on, because no new theory half as 
 plausible had demonstrated its divine right of succes- 
 sion. Nor yet had human reason come to the full 
 consciousness of itself, through the study of those 
 physical laws of nature whose immutable dictum is 
 the one and only basis of authority. And so, with the 
 gradual decadence of the power of the old theological 
 conceptions over the imagination, there came at first 
 another theory of insanity, which was but a partial 
 modification of the earlier one, and which preserved 
 many of its worst features. Insanity was pure mental 
 and moral, not physical, perversion. It was the out- 
 break of the animal, violent, filthy, blasphemous, and 
 murderous elements of the fallen human so?//, elements 
 which had culpably been permitted to get the upper 
 hand of the higher attributes. It was thus a fury of 
 the mind, not a fury of the inflamed and congested 
 body acting on the mind. One thing, at least, was 
 certain of it : it turned men and women into tigers 
 and jackals ; it made it impossible to appeal to their 
 reason, and thus put them outside the category of 
 human beings. Iron cages, chains, clubs, starvation, 
 must still remain the only fit instrumentalities through 
 which to dominate menageries of such wild beasts. 
 Not that a certain amount of crude and barbarous 
 medical prescription of purgings, bleedings, and 
 emetics 'did not go along with all this. Still, the 
 whole realm of the subtler relations between mind and 
 body was as yet a terra incognita. And so the 
 insane were inevitably looked upon with a strange 
 
58 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 and cruel blending of repulsion, personal fear, and de- 
 spair of any methods but those of physical coercion. 
 
 With the beginning, however, of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, and with steadily accumulating force as its years 
 rolled on, a great change began to come over New 
 England, and especially Massachusetts, a change 
 which was rapidly to put this State in the intellectual 
 van of her sister States of the Union. More frequent 
 and intimate mental communication with Europe 
 brought the minds of aspiring young men and women 
 into contact with the literature, the art, the science, 
 the philosophy, of the older world. An intellectual 
 ferment was thus set on, and, through it, what may 
 accurately enough be entitled " The Renaissance Pe- 
 riod of New England " the transition from linger- 
 ing medisevalism to rising modern conceptions now 
 showed vital signs of drawing on. The day came of 
 fervid reformers in theology like Channing and Emer- 
 son, in public education like Horace Mann, in practi- 
 cal charity like Dr. S. G. Howe, in the rational treat- 
 ment of insanity like Dr. Woodward, of Worcester. 
 
 Such, then, was the condition of things in New 
 England during the formative period in which the 
 mind of Miss Dix was coming to its maturity. On no 
 one had one especial class of the ideas of the " New 
 Awakening " not so much its literary and esthetic 
 as its religious, philanthropic, and scientific ideas 
 taken a stronger hold than on her. She had drunk 
 in with passionate faith Dr. Channing's fervid insis- 
 tence on the presence in human nature, even under 
 its most degraded types, of germs, at least, of endless 
 spiritual development. But it was the characteristic 
 of her own mind that it tended, not to protracted 
 speculation, but to immediate, embodied action. Give 
 her a seed thought, and she made haste to plant it, 
 
THE OLDER THEORIES OF INSANITY. 59 
 
 water it, and watch it grow, flower, and fruit. Though 
 mummy wheat, buried three thousand years in an 
 Egyptian tomb, her first instinctive impulse was to 
 furnish it here and now with soil and sun, and see 
 what could be made to germinate. In other words, 
 she delighted in positive forces, and loved to co-work 
 with them and see them justify themselves in practice. 
 The harder the conditions under which they were 
 called upon to do this, the greater the triumph. 
 
 As soon, therefore, as Miss Dix's attention became 
 directed to the pitiable condition of the insane, it was 
 not mere sentimental compassion over their sufferings 
 deeply and tragically even as this affected her 
 that engrossed her mind, but the immediate construc- 
 tive question, What class of positive forces, philan- 
 thropic, medical, legislative, judiciary, can be sum- 
 moned into the field to cope with this awful problem ? 
 That is, she proceeded at once to master the whole 
 question of insanity, its origin, its stages of develop- 
 ment, its relations of body and mind, its treatment, its 
 legal and moral rights, and to put herself abreast with 
 the most advanced thought on the subject. Here was 
 the shriveled and desiccated mummy wheat of human- 
 ity, which, as soon as she encountered it, she yearned 
 to see raised in resurrection from the tomb in which 
 for ages it had been buried. 
 
 What, then, it now becomes necessary to pause 
 and ask, was the distinctive character of the new 
 thought which, at this particular period, was kindling 
 the humane and scientific enthusiasm of the more 
 advanced minds of Europe and America on the whole 
 matter of insanity ? A clear understanding alone of 
 this will serve to put the reader in possession of the 
 inspiring creed of which Dorothea L. Dix was now to 
 become the fervid apostle. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE BREAKING OF A NEW DAY. 
 
 IN attempting a brief sketch of the history of the 
 treatment of insanity in the past, it is not necessary 
 here to harrow the mind with circumstantial details 
 of the frightful forms of exorcism practiced by the 
 Church throughout the Middle Ages, to the end of 
 driving the devils out of their supposed victims ; nor 
 of the medicines, as loathsome as those brewed from 
 newts and toads in the caldron of Macbeth's witches, 
 which were habitually administered ; nor of the chains, 
 whippings, bleedings, and duckings which were thought 
 necessary to physically weaken or subdue with terror 
 the more violent outbreaks of fury. The seemingly 
 unaccountable thing is, that it should have been at so 
 late a day in the history of civilization that, except in 
 the rarest instances, anything more rational began to 
 be believed in. Of this let a single example suffice, 
 that of Bethlehem Hospital in London, popularly 
 known as "Old Bedlam." 
 
 Up to so late a date as 1770, this famous hospital 
 was still regarded as the raree show of the city, supe- 
 rior even, in the attractions it offered the pleasure- 
 seeker, to a bull baiting or a dog fight. No more di- 
 verting entertainment could be devised by the average 
 citizen for guests visiting him from the country than 
 to take them, for a hearty laugh, to Bedlam, to see the 
 madmen cursing, raving, and fighting. There was to 
 
THE BREAKING OF A NEW DAY. 61 
 
 be had on show St. Paul or Julius Caesar chained to 
 the wall, or Semiramis or Joan of Arc ironed to the 
 floor, while the general throng, left more at liberty, 
 were guarded by brutal keepers, ready on the slightest 
 provocation to knock them senseless with heavy clubs. 
 The annual fees derived from this public entertain- 
 ment amounted to several hundred pounds. No one 
 seems to have felt any pity for the poor wretches. 
 The abyss which opened up between them and ordi- 
 nary humanity was too deep and wide for any sym- 
 pathetic imagination to span. A madhouse was a 
 menagerie, nothing more ; and it was as legitimate to 
 look through the bars at one class of wild beasts as at 
 another. 
 
 Think, farther, of the system of medical practice 
 that, at as late a date even as 1815, and then detailed 
 before the committee of the House of Parliament by 
 one of the visiting physicians, Dr. T. Monro, l was 
 still pursued at Bedlam. " Patients," said Dr. Monro, 
 " are ordered to be bled about the latter end of May, 
 according to the weather ; and, after they have been 
 bled, they take vomits once a week for a certain num- 
 ber of weeks ; after that we purge the patients. That 
 has been the practice invariably for long years before 
 my time, and I do not know of any better practice." - 
 Then as to the matter of simple protection from the 
 inclemency of the weather: "Even in the new build- 
 ing " (says Sydney Smith, " Edinburgh Review," 1815- 
 16), "the windows of the patients' bedrooms were not 
 glazed, nor were the latter warmed." What this must 
 have meant, throughout the chill fogs and freezing 
 nights of a London winter, to poor wretches chained 
 
 1 History of the Insane in the British Isles. D. H. Tuke, M. D., 
 F. R. C. P., etc. 
 
62 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 down to their beds for the night, it needs no words to 
 portray. The wild-beast theory of insanity, which had 
 succeeded to the diabolical-possession theory, still 
 reigned unbroken in the great majority of hospitals. 
 
 Strangely enough, it was first in Paris, and at the 
 height of the frenzy of the French Revolution, when 
 the excitement of the times had filled the wards of 
 the asylums with the most violent patients, that the 
 great moral genius appeared who was destined to inau- 
 gurate a complete revolution in the theory and treat- 
 ment of insanity, a revolution ordained to prove 
 historically quite as effective in the overthrow of the 
 old dynasty of force and terror that had reigned in 
 these institutions as was that of the Jacobins in the 
 overthrow of the old dynasty of French monarchism. 
 "Individual liberty! " had been the fierce cry raised 
 by the Jacobins, who forthwith proceeded to secure it 
 for themselves and their own ideas by fire and slaugh- 
 ter. " Individual liberty, the most of it possible ! " 
 was equally the cry of the gentle, merciful, far-seeing 
 Dr. Philippe Pinel, on receiving, in. 1792, the appoint- 
 ment of superintendent of the Bicetre, the asylum for 
 incurable insane males. " Off with these chains ! away 
 with these iron cages and brutal keepers ! They make 
 a hundred madmen where they cure one. There is 
 another and a better way. The insane man is not an 
 inexplicable monster. He is but one of ourselves, only 
 a little more so. Underneath his wildest paroxysms 
 there is a germ, at least, of rationality and of personal 
 accountability. To believe in this, to seek for it, 
 stimulate it, build it up, here lies the only way of 
 delivering him out of the fatal bondage in which he is 
 held!" 
 
 With unflagging persistency did Pinel now urge 
 
THE BREAKING OF A NEW DAY. 63 
 
 these humane convictions on the Commune, and seek 
 to get authority to try the effect of his scheme on at 
 least one fourth of his patients. The idea seemed to 
 those he argued with as wildly visionary as a deliber- 
 ate proposal to go out to the Jardin des Plantes and 
 fling wide the gratings to the jaguars and tigers con- 
 fined there. At last, however, he persuaded the fero- 
 cious Couthon to go with him to the Bicetre, and con- 
 sider the problem on the spot. 1 " They were greeted 
 in the gloomy prison by the yells and execrations of 
 three hundred maniacs, mingling the clanking of their 
 chains with the uproar of their voices." 
 
 Already had Couthon had long and familiar expe- 
 rience in dealing with the most savage elements of so- 
 ciety. But before the proposition now made him he 
 utterly quailed. " After looking over the patients, he 
 said to Pin el, 4 Ah, $a ! citoyen, es-tu fou toi-meme de 
 vouloir de'chainer de pareils animaux ? ' (Citizen, are 
 you crazy yourself, that you would unchain such 
 beasts ?) " Permission, however, to try the mad ex- 
 periment was finally given, some of the first results of 
 which will be found recorded in the following abridg- 
 ment of a portion of a memoir, read by the son of 
 Pinel before the Royal Academy of Arts and Sci- 
 ences : 
 
 " Near the close of the year 1792, M. Pinel, having re- 
 peatedly importuned the government to issue a decree per- 
 mitting him to unchain the maniacs at the Bicetre, went in 
 person to solicit what had been refused to his written rep- 
 resentations. With courage and resolution he urged the 
 removal of this cruel abuse. At length, M. Couthon, mem- 
 ber of the commune, yielded to the importunate arguments 
 of Pinel, and consented to meet him at the hospital, to wit- 
 1 Disease of the Mind, by Charles F. Folsom, M. D., p. 8. 
 
64 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 ness these first experiments, as well as to assure himself 
 that this was not a stratagem to give liberty to political of- 
 fenders. Couthon proceeded, himself, to question the pa- 
 tients, but received only abuse and execrations, accompanied 
 by terrible cries and the clanking of clains. Retreating 
 from the damp and filthy cells, he exclaimed to Pinel, * Do 
 as you will ; but you will be sacrificed to this false senti- 
 ment of inercy.' Pinel delayed no longer : he selected 
 fifty who he believed might be released from their chains 
 without danger to others. The fetters were removed, first, 
 from twelve, using the precaution of having prepared strong 
 jackets, closing behind, with long sleeves, which could be 
 used if necessary. 
 
 " The experiments commenced with an English captain, 
 whose history was unknown : he had been in chains forty 
 years ! As he was thought to be one of the most danger- 
 ous, having killed, at one time, an attendant with a blow 
 from his manacles, the keepers approached him with cau- 
 tion ; but first Pinel entered his cell unattended. t Ah, 
 well, captain, I will cause your chains to be taken off ; you 
 shall have liberty to walk in the court, if you will promise 
 to behave like a gentleman, and offer no assault to those 
 you will meet.' 1 1 would promise,' said the maniac ; ' but 
 you deride me, you are amusing yourself at my expense ; 
 you all fear me, once free.' ' I have six men,' replied 
 Pinel, * ready to obey my orders : believe me, therefore, I 
 will set you free from this duresse, if you will put on this 
 jacket.' The captain assented ; the chains were removed, 
 and the jacket laced ; the keepers withdrew, without clos- 
 ing the door. He raised himself, but fell : this effort was 
 repeated again and again ; the use of his limbs, so long con- 
 strained, nearly failed : at length, trembling, and with tot- 
 tering steps, he emerged from his dark dungeon. His first 
 look was at the sky ! * Ah,' cried he, ' how beautiful ! ' 
 The remainder of the day he was constantly moving to and 
 fro, uttering continually exclamations of pleasure ; he 
 
THE BREAKING OF A NEW DAY. 65 
 
 heeded no one : the flowers, tlie trees, above all the sky, 
 engrossed him. At night he voluntarily returned to his 
 cell, which had been cleansed and furnished with a better 
 bed : his sleep was tranquil and profound. For the two re- 
 maining years which he spent in the hospital he had no re- 
 currence of violent paroxysms, and often rendered good 
 service to the keepers in conducting the affairs of the es- 
 tablishment. 
 
 "The patient released next after the captain was Che- 
 vinge, a soldier of the French Guards, who had been 
 chained ten years, and had been peculiarly difficult of con- 
 trol. Pinel, entering his cell, announced that if he would 
 obey his injunctions he should be chained no longer. He 
 promised, and, following every movement of his liberator, 
 executed his directions with alacrity and address. Never, 
 in the history of the human mind, was exhibited a more 
 sudden and complete revolution ; he executed every order 
 with exactness ; and this patient, whose best years had been 
 sacrificed in a gloomy cell, in chains and misery, soon 
 showed himself capable of being one of the most useful per- 
 sons about the establishment. He repeatedly, during the 
 horrors of the Revolution, saved the life of his benefactor. 
 On one occasion, he encountered a band of ' sans culottes ' 
 who were bearing Pinel to * the Lanterne,' owing to his hav- 
 ing been an elector in 1789. With bold and determined 
 purpose he rescued his beloved master, and caused that life 
 to be spared which had been so great a blessing to the in- 
 sane in France. 
 
 " In the third cell were three Prussian soldiers, who had 
 been for many years in chains, but how or for what they 
 had been committed none kneiv ; they were not dangerous, 
 and seemed capable of enjoying the indulgence of living to- 
 gether. They were terrified at the preparations for their 
 release, fearing new severities awaited them. Sunk into 
 dementia, they were indifferent to the freedom offered. 
 
 " An aged priest came next ; he fancied himself to be 
 the Messiah. Taunted once with the exclamation that if in 
 
66 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 truth he was Christ he could break his chains, he answered 
 with solemnity, ' Frustra tentas Dominum tuum I ' Re- 
 ligious exaltation had characterized his life. On foot, he 
 had made pilgrimages to Rome and Cologne ; he had made 
 a voyage to the Western world to convert savage tribes. 
 This ruling idea passed into mania, and returning to France, 
 he declared that he was Christ, the Saviour. He was ar- 
 rested on the charge of blasphemy, and taken before the 
 Archbishop of Paris, by whose decree he was consigned to 
 the Bicetre, as either a blasphemer or a madman. Loaded 
 with heavy chains, he for twelve years bore patiently sar- 
 casm and cruel sufferings. Pinel had the happiness to wit- 
 ness his recovery in less than a year, and to discharge him 
 from the hospital cured. 
 
 " In the short period of a few days, Pinel released from 
 their chains more than fifty maniacs, men of various ranks 
 and conditions, merchants, lawyers, priests, soldiers, labor- 
 ers, thus rendering the furious tractable, and creating 
 peace and contentment, to a wonderful degree, where long 
 the most hideous scenes of tumult and disorder had reigned." 
 
 It was in 1796, only four years after Pinel's first 
 experiment in the Bicetre, and entirely independently 
 of any knowledge of his work, that a precisely similar 
 reform was inaugurated in England, - this time not 
 by a physician, but by a member of the Society of 
 Friends, William Tuke, a merchant of ample fortune 
 and great benevolence and force of character. In 
 building with his own means " The Retreat " at York, 
 and retaining the absolute control of its policy in his 
 own hands, he prepared a suitable place for a fair 
 trial of the new method he proposed. 
 
 It was by no mere chance, as men call chance, that 
 this great reform in England sprang from the mind 
 and heart of a member of the Society of Friends. 
 The leading tenet of the Quakers, faith in the power 
 
THE BREAKING OF A NEW DAY. 67 
 
 of absolute reason, and the identification of absolute 
 reason with the immediate divine presence in the soul, 
 was one that logically led to just such an experiment 
 as this, as likewise to invincible faith in its success. 
 No other religious sect in Christendom had accumu- 
 lated, and transmitted through inheritance to their 
 children, so great a mass of testimony as to the power 
 of gentleness, patience, and inward self-control to 
 evolve rational order out of the chaos of warring hu- 
 man passions. William Tuke had the moral great- 
 ness to see with perfect clearness, and to pursue with 
 heroic persistence, one luminous conviction, namely, 
 that precisely the same moral and physical regimen 
 which has proved itself the only power adapted to 
 quicken, mature, and firmly establish the elements of 
 reason and self-government in ourselves and our chil- 
 dren, is the sole regimen that can be trusted to do the 
 like for the feebler and more sorely beset elements of 
 the same essential reason in these poor afflicted ones. 
 
 " His feeling that something should be done had been 
 strengthened by a visit he had paid to St. Luke's 'Hospital, 
 where he saw the patients lying on straw and in chains. 
 He was distressed with the scene, and could not help be- 
 lieving that there was a more excellent way. . . . One day, 
 in the family circle, conversation turned on the name that 
 should be given to the proposed institution. The Retreat/ 
 quickly replied the good wife. What 's in a name ? 
 Everything at times. It was at once seen that feminine in- 
 stinct had solved the question, and the name was adopted, 
 to convey the idea of what such an institution should be, 
 namely, a place in which the unhappy might obtain a ref- 
 uge ; a quiet haven in which the shattered bark might find 
 the means of reparation or of safety." J 
 
 1 History of the Insane in the British Isles, p. 115, by Daniel Hack 
 Tuke, M. D., F. R. C. P. 
 
68 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 " In person," writes a contemporary of William 
 Tuke, " he hardly, reached the middle size, but was 
 erect, portly, and of a firm step. He had a noble fore- 
 head, an eagle eye, and a commanding voice, and his 
 mien was dignified and patriarchal." Like all pio- 
 neers in the struggle of human progress, he had to 
 encounter his full share of ridicule, obloquy, and op- 
 position. In the end, however, he triumphed, and 
 " The Retreat at York " became a beacon light of the 
 world, shining through the dark night of one of the 
 gloomiest chapters of human history. 
 
 Philippe Pinel and William Tuke : these, then, were 
 the two original minds that inaugurated a new epoch 
 in the history of the treatment of insanity, an epoch as 
 revolutionary in character within this especial realm 
 as that of the Copernican system in the realm of as- 
 tronomy. It implied an absolute reversal of all pre- 
 vious conceptions ; the substitution, in the place of 
 restraint and force, of the largest possible degree of 
 liberty ; the abandonment of the whole previous idea 
 of brute subjection for that of the emancipation of 
 the reason and the enhancement of the sense of per- 
 sonal responsibility. Each one of these remarkable 
 men achieved his task uninformed of the action of the 
 other. 
 
 " It is no new thing [says the eminent American alienist, 
 Dr. Pliny Earle, in commenting on this singular coinci- 
 dence] for inventions, discoveries, and innovations upon 
 traditionary practices to originate almost simultaneously in 
 more than one place, showing that they are called for by the 
 times ; that they are developments of science and humanity, 
 necessary evolutions of the human mind in its progress to- 
 ward the unattainable perfect, rather than what may be 
 termed a gigantic and monstrous production of one original 
 genius." 
 
THE BREAKING OF A NEW DAY. 69 
 
 Happily., the most characteristic mark of distinction 
 between the last hundred years and the centuries 
 which preceded them lies in the rapidity with which 
 new ideas, even the most revolutionary, spread, pro- 
 vided only they can justify themselves before the tri- 
 bunal of reason. Such proved true of the startling 
 innovation wrought by Pinel and Tuke. By 1838, 
 Dr. Gardner Hill, house surgeon of Lincoln Asylum, 
 England, ably seconded by Dr. Charlesworth, had 
 asserted the principle of the entire abolition of me- 
 chanical restraint, and had to a very large extent car- 
 ried it out, though personally falling a victim to the 
 bitter opposition he encountered alike from commis- 
 sioners and his own medical brethren. But imme- 
 diately followed the remarkable career of Dr. John 
 Conolly, who at Hanwell, on a much larger scale and 
 with far greater success, came to the rescue of the 
 cause. 
 
 " To Conolly," says the " Edinburgh Keview," April, 
 1870, " belongs a still higher crown, not merely for 
 his courage in carrying out a beneficent conception on 
 a large scale and on a conspicuous theatre, but for his 
 genius in expanding it. To him, hobbles and chains, 
 handcuffs and muffs, were but material impediments 
 that merely confined the limbs ; to get rid of these he 
 spent the best years of his life ; but beyond these me- 
 chanical fetters he saw there were a hundred fetters 
 to the spirit, which human sympathy, courage, and 
 time only could remove." 
 
 The dire instruments of coercion formerly in con- 
 stant use Dr. Conolly remanded to a room in the 
 asylum, and there constituted a museum of them, a 
 Chamber of Horrors, which the enlightened physician 
 of to-day contemplates with practically the same feel- 
 
70 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 ings which would be excited in him by a visit to the 
 old dungeons and instruments of torture of the inqui- 
 sition. And yet, so recently had the possibility of 
 such a change been dreamed of that Dr. Conolly re- 
 lates that he himself had formerly witnessed " humane 
 English physicians daily contemplating insane patients 
 , bound hand and foot, and neck and waist, in illness, 
 in pain, and in the agonies of death, without one sin- 
 gle touch of compunction, or the slightest approach 
 to the feeling of acting either cruelly or unwisely. 
 They thought it impossible to manage insane people 
 in any other way." 1 
 
 Is it, then, exaggeration to characterize the absolute 
 change of base inaugurated by the labors of Pinel and 
 Tuke as a Copernican revolution in the realm of the 
 theory and treatment of insanity ? 
 
 The beginning of the nineteenth century saw in 
 the whole United States but four insane asylums, of 
 which one only had been entirely built by a State 
 government. They were, in the order of the dates of 
 their foundation, those of Philadelphia, Penn., 1752 ; 
 of Williamsburg, Va. (the first State asylum), 1773 ; 
 of New York, 1791 ; of Baltimore, Md., 1797. In 
 
 1 " After five years' experience," wrote Dr. Conolly, " I have no 
 hesitation in recording my opinion that, with a well-constituted gov- 
 erning body, animated by philanthropy, directed by intelligence, and 
 acting by means of proper officers (entrusted with a due degree of au- 
 thority over attendants, properly selected, and capable of exercising 
 an efficient superintendence over patients), there is no asylum in the 
 world in which all mechanical restraint may not be abolished, not 
 only with perfect safety, but with incalculable advantage." (Tuke's 
 History of the Insane in the British Isles.) It may be that this is too 
 ideal a statement of what is possible under any but the rarest combi- 
 nation of circumstances. Dr. Conolly was a man of positive genius in 
 his calling, and of a magnetism and spirit of consecration that carried 
 all before him. At any rate, it was in the right direction. 
 
THE BREAKING OF A NEW DAY. 71 
 
 1813, attention was attracted to Tuke's work in Eng- 
 land by certain Philadelphia Friends, who, collecting 
 funds, opened in 1817 a hospital in which the insane 
 might see that they were " regarded as men and breth- 
 ren." One year later witnessed the foundation of the 
 McLean Asylum at Somerville, Mass., the asylum 
 which "established the character and principles of 
 treatment which have become universal with us, and 
 especially the principle of State supervision." Later 
 on, "The Retreat" at Hartford, Conn., opened in 
 1824, and the asylum at Worcester, Mass., in 1830, 
 became conspicuous examples of the practical applica- 
 tion of the new scientific and humane ideas inaugu- 
 rated by Pinel and Tuke. 
 
 " There were giants on the earth in those days," 
 says, in his paper on " Progress in Provision for the 
 Insane," Dr. W. W. Godding, of the Government In- 
 sane As} lum for the Army and Navy in Washington, 
 D. C. Dr. Godding had been speaking of the memo- 
 rable list of men in the United States who at that 
 early date had already been attracted by genius and 
 character to the development of the new system; 
 Brigham, Butler, Woodward, Ray, Walker, Bell, 
 Stribling, Grey, Kirkbride. Here, enlisted with con- 
 secrated intelligence and humanity under the new 
 banner, was a chosen band, who were destined before 
 very long to carry the fame of American asylums all 
 over Europe, and, for a time at least, to keep them 
 ahead of any in the world. 
 
 None the less, one indispensable spiritual power in 
 the land was still lacking. It was that of a fervid 
 apostle of the new creed ; of one animated with the 
 requisite inspiration and fire to lead a crusade against 
 the almost universal ignorance, superstition, and apa- 
 
72 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 thy which still reigned over nearly the whole of the 
 States of the Union ; of a mind and heart, in fine, 
 powerful enough to rally thousands and tens of thou- 
 sands to the deliverance from the hand of the infidel 
 of what should seem to her no less than the Holy 
 Sepulchre of crucified humanity. This imperative de- 
 mand was now to be answered in the person of Doro- 
 thea Lynde Dix. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE DESCENT INTO INFERNO. 
 
 IT was on March 28, 1841, that Miss Dix was first 
 brought face to face with the condition of things pre- 
 vailing in the jails and almshouses of Massachusetts, 
 which launched her on her great career. The story, 
 repeated in so many scattered notices of her life, runs 
 that, on coming out of church one Sunday, she over- 
 heard two gentlemen speaking in such terms of indig- 
 nation and horror of the treatment to which the 
 prisoners and lunatics in the East Cambridge, Massa- 
 chusetts, jail were subjected that she forthwith deter- 
 mined to go over there and look into matters herself. 
 The occurrence of the incident is perfectly possible ; 
 but the important fact of the case is given in the fol- 
 lowing extract from a letter of Rev. John T. G. Nich- 
 ols, D. D., of Saco, Maine : 
 
 " While a member of the theological school in Cam- 
 bridge [writes Dr. Nichols], I was one of a body of stu- 
 dents who took the East Cambridge house of correction 
 in charge for Sunday-school instruction. All the women, 
 twenty in number, were assigned to me. I was at once con- 
 vinced that, not a young man, but a woman should be their 
 teacher. Consulting my mother, I was directed by her to 
 Miss Dix for further counsel. On hearing my account, Miss 
 Dix said, after some deliberation, ' I will take them myself ! ' 
 I protested her physical incapacity, as she was in feeble 
 health. ' I shall be there next Sunday,' was her answer. 
 
 " After the school was over, Miss Dix went into the jaiL 
 
74 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 She found among the prisoners a few insane persons, with 
 whom she talked. She noticed there was no stove in their 
 room, and no means of proper warmth. The jailer said 
 that a fire for them was not needed, and would not be safe. 
 Her repeated solicitations were without success. At that 
 time the court was in session at East Cambridge, and she 
 caused the case to be brought before it. Her request was 
 granted. The cold rooms were warmed. Thus was her 
 great work commenced. Of course I claim not a particle of 
 credit. I was simply the instrument of the Good Providence 
 to open the door for this Angel of Mercy to come in." 
 
 It was thus that, in the East Cambridge jail, Miss 
 Dix was first brought into immediate contact with the 
 overcrowding, the filth, and the herding together of 
 innocent, guilty, and insane persons, which at that 
 time characterized the prisons of Massachusetts, and 
 the inevitable evils of which were repeated in even 
 worse shape in the almshouses. Her first act, as has 
 been seen, was the practical one of enforcing mercy by 
 law, through insisting that, in a climate where in win- 
 ter the thermometer frequently registers zero and be- 
 low, a fire of some sort should be provided for shiver- 
 ing wretches who in their frenzy often tore the clothes 
 off their backs. Casting about her for help, she soon 
 succeeded in enlisting the aid of that ever loyal friend 
 of humanity, Dr. S. G. Howe, and, through him, that 
 of the afterwards famous philanthropist and states- 
 man, Charles Sumner. Close beside her, too, stood 
 Rev. Robert C. Waterston. 
 
 At Miss Dix's solicitation, Dr. Howe himself made 
 a careful examination, the result of which was printed 
 in an article in the Boston " Daily Advertiser " of Sep- 
 tember 8, 1841 ; an article of course fiercely attacked, 
 as is generally the case when abuses are pointed out. 
 
THE DESCENT INTO INFERNO. 75 
 
 Later on in the controversy, Dr. Howe appealed for 
 corroboration to Charles Simmer, who had accompa- 
 nied him on his visit. To this Mr. Simmer replied : 
 
 " MY DEAR HOWE, I am sorry to say that your article 
 does present a truepwture of the condition in which we found 
 those unfortunates. They were cramped together in rooms 
 poorly ventilated and noisome with filth. . . . You cannot 
 forget the small room in which were confined the raving 
 maniac, from whom long since reason had fled, never to re- 
 turn, and that interesting young woman, whose mind was 
 so slightly obscured that it seemed as if, in a moment, even 
 while we were looking on, the cloud would pass away. In 
 two cages or pens constructed of plank, within the four stone 
 walls of the same room, these two persons had spent several 
 months. The whole prison echoed with the blasphemies of 
 the poor old woman, while her young and gentle fellow in 
 suffering, doomed to pass her days and nights in such close 
 connection with her, seemed to shrink from her words as 
 from blows. And well she might ; for they were words not 
 to be heard by any woman in whom reason had left any 
 vestige of its former presence. It was a punishment by a 
 cruel man in heathen days to tie the- living to the dead ; 
 hardly less horrid was this scene in the prison at Cam- 
 bridge. 
 
 " Ever faithfully yours, CHARLES SUMNER." 
 
 Was the state of things in the East Cambridge jail 
 an exception, or did it simply exemplify the rule 
 throughout the whole Commonwealth ? This was the 
 painful question now raised in the mind of Miss Dix, 
 to an unmistakable answer to which she resolutely 
 devoted the next two years. Note-book in hand, she 
 started out on her voyage of exploration, visiting every 
 jail and almshouse from Berkshire on the west to 
 Cape Cod on the east. Steadily accumulating her 
 statistics of outrage and misery, she at last got to- 
 
76 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 gether a mass of eye-witness testimony appalling in 
 extent and detail. With this she now determined to 
 memorialize the Legislature of Massachusetts. 
 
 As this was the first Memorial addressed by Miss 
 Dix to a State legislature, long as was the series of 
 the like that was to follow, full extracts from it are 
 needful, alike to reveal the patience, energy, and spirit 
 of humanity with which she addressed herself to her 
 work, as well as the actual character of the evils she 
 was now in arms against : 
 
 " GENTLEMEN : . . . About two years since, leisure afforded 
 opportunity, and duty prompted me, to visit several prisons 
 and almshouses in the vicinity of this metropolis. . . . Every 
 investigation has given depth to the conviction that it is only 
 by decided, prompt, and vigorous legislation that the evils 
 to which I refer, and which I shall proceed more fully to il- 
 lustrate, can be remedied. I shall be obliged to speak with 
 great plainness, and to reveal many things revolting to the 
 taste, and from which my woman's nature shrinks with pe- 
 culiar sensitiveness. But truth is the highest consideration. 
 / tell what I have seen, painful and shocking as the de- 
 tails often are, that from them you may feel more deeply 
 the imperative obligation which lies upon you to prevent the 
 possibility of a repetition or continuance of such outrages 
 upon humanity. ... If rny pictures are displeasing, coarse, 
 and severe, my subjects, it must be recollected, offer no 
 tranquil, refining, or composing features. The condition of 
 human beings reduced to the extremest state of degradation 
 and misery cannot be exhibited in softened language, or 
 adorn a polished page. 
 
 " I proceed, gentlemen, briefly to call your attention to 
 the present state of insane persons confined within this 
 Commonwealth, in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, pens ; 
 chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedi- 
 ence ! " 
 
THE DESCENT INTO INFERNO. 77 
 
 Page after page, the Memorial then goes on to recite 
 the details of a long catalogue of horrors. They do 
 not furnish pleasing reading, but if the life work of 
 Miss Dix is to be practically written out and duly ap- 
 preciated, it is necessary to brace the nerves and go 
 through with some of them. 
 
 
 " I give a few illustrations [the Memorial then proceeds] 
 but description fades before reality." 
 
 " DANVERS. November. Visited the almshouse ; a large 
 building, much out of repair ; understand a new one is in 
 contemplation. Here are from fifty-six to sixty inmates : 
 one idiotic ; three insane ; one of the latter in close confine- 
 ment at all times. 
 
 " Long before reaching the house, wild shouts, snatches of 
 rude songs, imprecations, and obscene language, fell upon 
 the ear, proceeding from the occupant of a low building, 
 rather remote from the principal building, to which my 
 course was directed. Found the mistress, and was con- 
 ducted to the place, which was called l the home' of the 
 forlorn maniac, a young woman, exhibiting a condition of 
 neglect and misery blotting out the faintest idea of comfort, 
 and outraging every sentiment of decency. She had been, 
 I learnt, a respectable person, industrious and worthy ; 
 disappointments and trials shook her mind, and finally laid 
 prostrate reason and self-control ; she became a maniac for 
 life ! She had been at Worcester Hospital for a consider- 
 able time, arid had been returned as incurable. The mis- 
 tress told me she understood that, while there, she was 
 comfortable and decent. Alas ! what a change was here ex- 
 hibited ! She had passed from one degree of violence and 
 degradation to another, in swift progress ; there she stood, 
 clinging to, or beating upon, the bars of her caged apart- 
 ment, the contracted size of which afforded space only for 
 increasing accumulations of filth, afoul spectacle; there 
 she stood, with naked arms and disheveled hair; the un- 
 
78 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 washed frame invested with fragments of unclean garments ; 
 the air so extremely offensive, though ventilation was af- 
 forded on all sides save one, that it was not possible to re- 
 main beyond a few moments without retreating- for recovery 
 to the outward air. Irritation of body, produced by utter 
 filth and exposure, incited her to the horrid process of tear- 
 ing off her skin by inches ; her face, neck, and person 
 were thus disfigured to hideousness. 
 
 " Is the whole story told ? What was seen is ; what is 
 reported is not. These gross exposures are not for the 
 pained sight of one alone ; all, all, coarse, brutal men, won- 
 dering, neglected children, old and young, each and all, 
 witness this lowest, foulest state of miserable humanity. 
 And who protects her, that worse than Pariah outcast, from 
 other wrongs and blacker outrages ? 
 
 " Some may say these things cannot be remedied ; these 
 furious maniacs are not to be raised from these base condi- 
 tions. I know they are ; could give many examples ; let 
 one suffice. A young woman, a pauper in a distant town, 
 Sandisfield, was for years a raging maniac. A cage, chains, 
 and the whip were the agents for controlling her, united 
 with harsh tones and profane language. Annually, with 
 others (the town's poor) she was put up at auction, and bid 
 off at the lowest price which was declared for her. One 
 year not long past, an old man came forward in the number 
 of applicants for the poor wretch ; he was taunted and ridi- 
 culed. What would he and his old wife do with such a mere 
 beast ? ' ' My wife says yes,' replied he, ' and I shall take 
 her.' She was given to his charge ; he conveyed her home ; 
 she was washed, neatly dressed, and placed in a decent bed- 
 room, furnished for comfort and opening into the kitchen. 
 How altered her condition ! As yet the chains were not 
 off. The 'first week she was somewhat restless, at times 
 violent, but the quiet ways of the old people wrought a 
 change : she received her food decently ; forsook acts of 
 violence, and no longer uttered blasphemous or indecent 
 language. After a week the chain was lengthened, and she 
 
THE DESCENT INTO INFERNO. 79 
 
 was received as a companion into the kitchen. Soon she 
 engaged in trivial employments. ' After a fortnight,' said 
 the old man, ' I knocked off the chains and made her a 
 free woman.' She is at times excited, but not violently ; 
 they are careful of her diet, they keep her very clean ; she 
 calls them father and mother. Go there now, and you will 
 find her ' clothed,' and though not perfectly in her * right 
 mind,' so far restored as to be a safe and comfortable in- 
 mate." 
 
 " GROTON. A few rods removed from the poorhouse is 
 a wooden building upon the roadside, constructed of heavy 
 board and plank. . . . There is no window, save an open- 
 ing half the size of the sash, and closed by a board shutter ; 
 in one corner is some brickwork surrounding an iron stove, 
 which in cold weather serves for warming the room. The 
 occupant of this dreary abode is a young man, who has been 
 declared incurably insane. He can move a measured dis- 
 tance in his prison ; that is, so far as a strong, heavy chain 
 depending from an iron collar which invests his neck per- 
 mits. In fine weather, and it was pleasant when I was 
 there in June last, the door is thrown open, at once giving 
 admission to light and air, and affording some little variety 
 to the solitary, in watching the passers-by. But that por- 
 tion of the year which allows of open doors is not the chief- 
 est part ; and it may be conceived, without draughting much 
 on the imagination, what is the condition of one who for 
 days and weeks and months sits in darkness and alone, 
 without employment, without object." 
 
 This unhappy being in Groton, with the chain 
 round his neck, is alluded to again in the following 
 conversation between Miss Dix and the keeper of the 
 almshouse in Fitchburg : 
 
 " Why [she there asked, speaking of a poor lunatic] 
 cannot you take this man abroad to work on the farm ? 
 He is harmless ; air and exercise will help to recover him." 
 " I have been talking with our overseers, [was the answer] 
 
80 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 11 and I 've proposed getting from the blacksmith an iron 
 collar and chain ; then I can have him out by the house." 
 " An iron collar and chain ! " " Yes. I had a cousin up in 
 Vermont, crazy as a wildcat, and I got a collar made for 
 him, and he liked it." " Liked it ! How did he manifest 
 his pleasure ? " " Why, he left off trying to run away. I 
 kept the almshouse in Groton. There was a man there from 
 the hospital. I built an outhouse for him, and the black- 
 smith made him an iron collar and chain, so we had him 
 fast, and the overseers approved it." 
 
 " SHELBURNK. I had heard, before visiting this place, of 
 the bad condition of a lunatic pauper. ... I desired to see 
 him. and, after some difficulties raised and set aside, was 
 conducted into the yard, where was a small building of 
 rough boards imperfectly joined. All was still, save now 
 and then a low groan. The person who conducted me tried, 
 with a stick, to rouse the inmate ; I entreated her to desist ; 
 the twilight of the place making it difficult to discern any- 
 thing within the cage ; there at last I saw a human being, 
 partially extended, cast upon his back amidst a mass of 
 filth, the sole furnishing, whether for comfort or necessity, 
 which the place afforded ; there he lay, ghastly, with up- 
 turned, glazed eyes and fixed gaze, heavy breathings, in- 
 terrupted only by faint groans, which seemed symptomatic 
 of an approaching termination of his sufferings. Not so 
 thought the mistress. ' He has all sorts of ways ; he '11 soon 
 rouse up and be noisy enough ; he '11 scream and beat about 
 the place like any wild beast, half the time.' ' And cannot 
 you make him more comfortable ? Can he not have some 
 clean, dry place and a fire ? ' 'As for clean, it will do no 
 good ; he 's cleaned out now and then ; but what 's the use 
 for such a creature ? His own brother tried him once, but 
 got sick enough of the bargain.' * But a fire ; there is space 
 even here for a small box stove.' * If he had a fire he 'd 
 only pull off his clothes, so it 's no use.' I made no impres- 
 sion ; it was plain that to keep him securely confined from 
 
THE DESCENT INTO INFERNO. 81 
 
 escape was the chief object. ' How do you give him his food ? 
 I see no means of introducing anything here/ ' Oh ! ' point- 
 ing to the floor, ' one of the bars is cut shorter there ; we push 
 it through there.' ' There ? Impossible ! you cannot do 
 that ; you would not treat your lowest dumb animals with 
 that disregard to decency / ' 'As for what he eats or where 
 he eats, it makes no difference to him ; he 'd as soon swal- 
 low one thing as another.' " 
 
 " NEWTOX. . . Opening into this room only was the 
 second, which was occupied by a woman, not old, and furi- 
 ously mad. It contained a wooden bunk filled with filthy 
 straw, the room itself a counterpart to the lodging-place. 
 Inexpressibly disgusting and loathsome was all ; but the in- 
 mate herself was even more horribly repelling. She rushed 
 out, as far as the chains would allow, almost in a state of 
 nudity, exposed to a dozen persons, and vociferating at the 
 top of her voice ; pouring forth such a flood of indecent 
 language as might corrupt even Newgate. I entreated the 
 man, who was still there, to go out and close the door. He 
 refused ; that was not his place ! Sick, horror-struck, and 
 almost incapable of retreating, I gained the outward air." 
 
 " Of the dangers and mischiefs sometimes following the 
 location of insane persons in our almshouses I will record 
 but one more example. In Worcester has for several years 
 resided a young woman, a lunatic pauper, of decent life and 
 respectable family. I have seen her as she usually ap- 
 peared, listless and silent, almost or quite sunk into a state 
 of dementia, sitting one amidst the family, 'but not of 
 them.' A few weeks since, revisiting that almshouse, judge 
 my horror and amazement to see her negligently bearing in 
 her arms a young infant, of which I was told she was the 
 unconscious parent ! Who was the father none could or 
 would declare. Disqualified for the performance of mater- 
 nal cares and duties, regarding the helpless little creature 
 with a perplexed or indifferent gaze, she sat a silent, but 
 oh, how eloquent, a pleader for the protection of others of 
 her neglected and outraged sex ! Details of that black 
 
82 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 story would not strengthen the cause ; needs it a weightier 
 plea than the sight of that forlorn creature and her wailing 
 infant ? Poor little child, more than orphan from birth, in 
 this unfriendly world, a demented mother, a father on 
 whom the sun might blush or refuse to shine ! " 
 
 Such are brief selections from some of the extreme 
 instances of misery and barbarity to which Dorothea 
 L. Dix now called public attention through her Me- 
 morial to the Legislature of Massachusetts. Perhaps 
 even more pitiful was the situation of the long cata- 
 logue of those whose reason, less wholly overthrown, 
 left them (like the poor young woman to whom Charles 
 Sumner so pathetically alludes) more sensible of their 
 forlorn condition. The Memorial concluded with an 
 impassioned appeal for adequate asylum provision 
 against the continuance any longer of so foul a blot 
 on the fair fame of the Commonwealth : 
 
 " Men of Massachusetts, I beg, I implore, I demand, pity 
 and protection for these of my suffering, outraged sex. 
 Fathers, husbands, brothers, I would supplicate you for this 
 boon but what do I say ? I dishonor you, divest you at 
 once of Christianity and humanity, does this appeal imply 
 distrust. . . . Here you will put away the cold, calculating 
 spirit of selfishness and self-seeking, lay off the armor of 
 local strife and political opposition ; here and now, for once, 
 forgetful of the earthly and perishable, come up to these 
 halls and consecrate them with one heart and one mind to 
 works of righteousness and just judgment. . . . Gentle- 
 men, I commit to you this sacred cause. Your action upon 
 this subject will affect the present and future condition of 
 hundreds and thousands. In this legislation, as in all 
 things, may you exercise that wisdom which is the breath 
 of the power of God. Respectfully submitted. 
 
 "D. L. Dix. 
 
 "85 MX. VERNON STREET, BOSTON, 
 " January, 1843." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SUCCESS OF THE FIRST MEMORIAL. 
 
 INEVITABLY a Memorial such as that now described 
 struck and exploded like a bombshell. It was carry- 
 ing the war into Africa. It was the arraignment not 
 of a local evil here and there, but of the state of 
 things prevailing more or less in every township 
 throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. " In- 
 
 O 
 
 credible ! incredible ! " was the first natural outcry of 
 humane people. " Sensational and slanderous lies ! " 
 was the swift and fiery rejoinder of selectmen, alms- 
 house keepers, and private citizens in arms for the 
 credit of their towns. Everywhere the newspapers 
 bristled with angry articles. " There are some," this 
 was the tone too often adopted, " and Miss Dix may 
 be one of them, who are always on tiptoe, looking 
 forward for something more marvelous than is to 
 be discovered in real life ; and because the things 
 themselves will not come up to this pitch of the im- 
 agination, the imagination is brought down to them, 
 and has a world of its own creating." 
 
 All in vain had the memorialist sought to make it 
 plain that it was a system, and not individuals, she 
 arraigned, and that to put the pauper insane under 
 the practically uncontrolled authority of ignorant and 
 passionate persons, not only destitute of due know- 
 ledge, but destitute of any fit appliances for the treat- 
 ment of the most terrible of human visitations, was 
 
84 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 the straight way to insure a hell on earth. Carefully 
 and circumstantially had she written to the sheriffs 
 all over the State, and received from them detailed 
 replies substantiating her position that nothing better 
 could be looked for from such a system. But on 
 those more immediately arraigned all this made no im- 
 pression. Such people felt themselves pilloried before 
 the public gaze as fiends in human shape, and natu- 
 rally made frantic efforts to declare the statements of 
 the Memorial a tissue of lies. 
 
 " Did you never [says, in his ' Autocrat of the Break- 
 fast-Table,' Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in words so pictu- 
 resquely descriptive of the situation that the temptation to 
 quote them is too strong to resist], did you never, in walk- 
 ing in the fields, come across a large flat stone, which has 
 lain, nobody knows how long, just where you found it, with 
 the grass forming a little hedge, as it were, all round it, 
 close to its edges, and have you not, in obedience to a 
 kind of feeling that told you it had been lying there long 
 enough, insinuated your stick or your foot or your fingers 
 under its edge and turned it over, as a housewife turns a 
 cake ? . . . What an odd revelation, and what an unfore- 
 seen and unpleasant surprise to a small community, the 
 very existence of which you had not suspected, until the 
 sudden dismay and scattering among its members was pro- 
 duced by your turning the old stone over ! Blades of grass 
 flattened down, colorless, matted together, as if they had 
 been bleached and ironed ; hideous crawling creatures, some 
 of them coleopterous or horny-shelled ; . . . black, glossy 
 crickets, with their long filaments sticking out like the 
 whips of four-horse stage-coaches ; motionless slug-like crea- 
 tures, young larvae, perhaps more horrible in their pulpy 
 stillness than even in the infernal wriggle of maturity ! But 
 no sooner is the stone turned, and the wholesome light of 
 day let upon this compressed and blinded community of 
 
SUCCESS OF THE FIRST MEMORIAL. 85 
 
 creeping things, than all of them which enjoy the luxury of 
 legs and some of them have a good many rush round 
 wildly, butting each other and everything in their way, and 
 end in a general stampede for underground retreats from 
 the region poisoned by sunshine. Next year you will find 
 the grass growing tall and green where the stone lay ; the 
 ground-bird builds her nest where the beetle had his hole ; 
 the dandelion and the buttercup are growing there, and the 
 broad fans of insect-angels open and shut over their golden 
 disks, as the rhythmic waves of blissful consciousness pulsate 
 through their glorified being." 
 
 Very soon, however, was it to become clear to intel- 
 ligent men and women that they were now called upon 
 to deal with one who was at the last remove from a 
 sensationalist ; with one, on the contrary, endowed 
 not merely with a sensitive heart, but with a states- 
 manlike grasp of mind. She had raised no wild, 
 feminine shriek of horror, when first the abyss of evil 
 had opened up before her, but had patiently explored 
 the depths of the inferno, sternly shutting her lips till 
 she should come out again to the light of day, to re- 
 port what her own eyes had seen. 
 
 Exception might be taken to a particular shade of 
 statement here or there, but to the main truth of her 
 arraignment none. Soon there rallied to her side a 
 band of able men, of whom such names as those of 
 Dr. Samuel G. Howe, Dr. William E. Channing, 
 Hon. Horace Mann, Rev. John G. Palfrey, and Dr. 
 Luther Y. Bell, of the McLean Asylum, proved a 
 tower of strength. And so to the fierce and insulting 
 comments of selectmen or almshouse keepers, as of 
 Groton for example, she needed no more conclusive 
 reply than the quiet publication of letters like the 
 following from Dr. Luther V. Bell, a man who, for 
 
86 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 humanity, science, and sound practical judgment, car- 
 ried irresistible weight : 
 
 MCLEAN ASYLUM, February 15, 1843. 
 
 MY DEAR Miss Dix, On recurring once more to your 
 Memorial, for which I pray that you may have a reward 
 higher than the applause of this world, I thought I would 
 make you a short statement touching a case of a young man 
 in the poorhouse at Groton, referred to on page nineteen. 
 
 Various coincidences led me to suppose this individual 
 to be one James Gilson, such as the fact of having been at 
 " the hospital," the peculiar blacksmith work for his re- 
 straint, etc. 
 
 I extract a part of the history of his case, as recorded at 
 the time by my assistant, of course with no expectation on 
 his part of its being seen or published beyond the ordinary 
 records of cases. 
 
 " 1840, December 15. Mr. James Gilson, Groton, aged 
 30, single ; town pauper. About nine months since, whilst 
 at work in Lowell, his derangement came on, and soon 
 after he was sent to the house of correction, in East Cam- 
 bridge ; there he remained till last June (1840), when he 
 was removed to the poorhouse in Groton, and confined in 
 the following revolting manner : A band of iron, an inch 
 wide, went round his neck, with a chain six feet long at- 
 tached. This was used for the purpose of securing him to 
 any particular place. His hands were restrained by means 
 of a clavis and bolt (of iron), appropriated to each wrist, 
 and united by a padlock. In this bondage, this iron cruel 
 bondage, talking incoherently to be sure, but without any 
 exhibition of violence, was he brought to the Asylum in the 
 morning, after having been chained up the night before in 
 a barn, like a wild animal, to spend its dreary hours. His 
 shackles were immediately knocked off in the presence of 
 his keeper, his swollen lirnbs chafed gently, when the de- 
 lighted maniac exclaimed ' My good man, I must kiss you,' 
 etc." 
 
SUCCESS OF THE FIRST MEMORIAL. 87 
 
 So little was this man a subject for personal restraint dur- 
 ing his residence with us that he never even injured his 
 clothes, ate at a common table with knives and forks with a 
 dozen others, slept in a common bedroom, and was consid- 
 ered as a pleasant patient filled with delusions. After a 
 short interval, curative means were employed, and, as we 
 judged, with most obvious and encouraging advantage, until 
 on the 23d day of April, that is, after a little over four 
 months' trial, when the overseers of the poor, without pre- 
 vious notice, sent for him, while under the most energetic use 
 of remedies which required a gradual discontinuance. My 
 assistant's record closes with saying, " Reluctant to go, for 
 fear they will again chain him." 
 
 " The occupant of this dreary abode is a young man," 
 you observe in your Memorial, " who has been declared 
 incurably insane." Alas ! he may be so now ; two years of 
 chaining, doubtless, has extinguished forever his hope of 
 recovery ; but when he was removed from this place, I de- 
 clare it as my opinion that he was not only not incurably 
 insane, but was on the path to recovery ; in every respect a 
 promising case. So fully was I impressed with this that I 
 urged the messengers to return till I could advise the town 
 of his prospects ; but this was declined. 
 
 How much now, my dear madam, do you suppose the 
 charge to the large and thriving town of Groton was for this 
 poor man under the care of this department of the Massa- 
 chusetts General Hospital ? Precisely three dollars a week 
 for every expense of support, care, and comfort ; perhaps a 
 third or a half more than his present cost. 
 
 Very truly yours, LUTHER V. BELL. 
 
 Equally encouraging letters from other prominent 
 men now came to Miss Dix. " I have felt," wrote 
 Horace Mann, " in reading your Memorial, as I used 
 to feel when formerly I endeavored to do something 
 for the welfare of the same class, as though all 
 
88 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 personal enjoyments were criminal until they were 
 relieved." Dr. Channing, who had printed an elo- 
 quent notice of her Memorial in the " Christian 
 World," wrote her of this notice: "I only wish it 
 were more worthy. Such as it is I give it to you with 
 my best thanks for your great work of humanity." 
 Lucius Manlius Sargent sent word : "I trust you will 
 not suffer a moment's disquietude from the considera- 
 tion that there is a morbid sensibility abroad which 
 may question the propriety of such an investigation 
 by one of your sex." 
 
 At the present day of such pronounced ideas on 
 the whole issue of woman's sphere and woman's 
 work, such a letter as this last would only provoke a 
 humorous smile. It is questionable, however, whether 
 many of Miss Dix's letters gave her more real satis- 
 faction. Lucius Manlius Sargent was himself a very 
 knightly specimen of a man, and one whose chivalrous 
 salute any woman would have taken pride in ; while 
 Miss Dix's own ideas of feminine propriety, rooted 
 and grounded in a select young ladies' boarding- 
 school, were of an exacting and old-fashioned order. 
 No doubt she read the letter over several times, and 
 rejoiced that in the eyes of so courtly a gentleman she 
 had not " unsexed " herself in venturing to plead for 
 her poor unsexed sisters. 
 
 Very shortly after its first presentation to the Mas- 
 sachusetts Legislature, the Memorial was referred to a 
 committee, of which Dr. S. G. Howe was appointed 
 chairman. The committee made a report at once 
 strongly indorsing the truth of Miss Dix's statements, 
 and fortifying them with other instances of like out- 
 rages on humanity, the report closing with an eloquent 
 appeal for immediate legislative action. The entire 
 
SUCCESS OF THE FIRST MEMORIAL. 89 
 
 provision for the insane in the State in the State 
 Hospital at Worcester, in the McLean Asylum, and 
 in the hospital at South Boston was, it was asserted, 
 not adequate to the care of quite 500 patients, while 
 there were in the Commonwealth 958 pauper insane 
 and idiotic persons, to say nothing* of about 800 at 
 private charge. A resolution was introduced, recom- 
 mending "that the Trustees of the State Lunatic 
 Hospital at Worcester shall erect additional buildings, 
 adjoining or near the existing buildings of said hos- 
 pital, sufficiently large for the addition of 200 insane 
 patients more." 
 
 A capital piece of good fortune was it that at this 
 juncture a man of the courage and indomitable 
 humanity of Dr. S. G. Howe should have been in 
 the Legislature, ready and eager to engineer the bill 
 through. All along had he stood by Miss Dix, and 
 encouraged her efforts. Now, as the debate went on, 
 he continually sent her short, stimulating letters. 
 
 " I presented [he says in one of these] your Memorial this 
 morning, indorsing it both as a memorial and a petition. 
 Your work is nobly done, but not yet ended. I want you 
 to select some newspaper as your cannon, from which you 
 will discharge often red-hot shot into the very hearts of the 
 people ; so that, kindling, they shall warm up the clams and 
 oysters of the house to deeds of charity. When I look back 
 upon the time when you stood hesitating and doubting upon 
 the brink of the enterprise you have so bravely and nobly 
 accomplished, I cannot but be impressed with the lesson of 
 courage and hope which you have taught even to the strong- 
 est men. . . . You are pleased to overrate the importance 
 of my efforts. I can only reply that if I touch off the piece, 
 it will be you who furnish the ammunition." 
 
 A little later on, as the inevitable delays to any 
 
90 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 work of reform presented themselves, Dr. Howe wrote 
 less hopefully : 
 
 " I do not like to indulge in feelings of distrust, but have 
 been irritated by the cold, pecuniary policy of these men. 
 A friend overheard one of those very men who talked so 
 pathetically to you, say, * We must find some way to kill 
 this devil of a hospital bill ! ' Speaking about these traitors, 
 another friend, and one versed in the wiles of politicians, 
 said to me, ' Doctor, never mind : there is a hell ; these 
 fellows will find it.' But God soften their hearts, and en- 
 able them to realize the sad condition of the insane, and 
 turn and do otherwise." 
 
 Happily, the feeling of discouragement expressed 
 in this last letter proved needless. So profound had 
 been the sensation throughout the Commonwealth 
 awakened by the frightful details and impassioned elo- 
 quence of the Memorial that the obstructions and de- 
 lays of politicians were swept away before a steadily 
 rising tide of public indignation. The bill for imme- 
 diate relief was carried by a large majority, and the 
 order passed for providing State accommodations at 
 Worcester for two hundred additional insane persons. 
 At once Dr. John G. Palfrey wrote congratulatingly to 
 the happy woman, adding, " I did not tell you, what 
 you will have understood, that Dr. Howe managed 
 the business admirably, to say like an old stager 
 would be doing him injustice, like a man of human- 
 ity, energy, and abundant resources, as he is." 
 
 Thus was ventured and won Miss Dix's first legis- 
 lative victory, the precursor of such numbers to follow 
 through the length and breadth of the United States 
 that their repetition year by year, the enormous sums of 
 money they involved, the magnitude of the structures 
 they led to the building of, the range of the field they 
 
SUCCESS OF THE FIRST MEMORIAL. 91 
 
 opened out to advancing medical science, and the vast 
 numbers of poor wretches transferred from stalls and 
 chains to a comparative heaven of asylum comfort, 
 fairly startle the imagination. It was a legislative vic- 
 tory which illustrated the peculiar characteristics of 
 her mind. Two years, as has been seen, of patient, 
 concentrated work had preceded any word of appeal 
 to the public. In these two years she had gained the 
 training of accurate observation and indomitable will 
 so indispensable to any one who will probe to the 
 bottom great evils, and then resolutely steer the way 
 through the obstruction, deceit, and wrath, always 
 aroused by insistence on radical reform. Sternly re- 
 pressing the native intensity of an emotional nature, 
 instinctively on fire at the sight of wrong and cruelty, 
 she had acquired at last a dignity and repose of 
 manner that carried with them the peculiar power 
 always exercised by restrained emotion. Jailer or 
 almshouse-keeper, no man, however cunning or how- 
 ever brutal, could henceforth think to wave her aside 
 or refuse her entrance. Something formidable was 
 there now about her, to which inferior natures irre- 
 sistibly submitted ; but the presence as of a higher 
 power thus manifested came " not in the wind, nor in 
 the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in a still, small 
 voice." 
 
 Indeed, to this day, the oldest living friends of Miss 
 Dix never weary of speaking of the wonderful quality 
 of her voice. It was sweet, rich, and low, perfect in 
 enunciation, and its every tone pervaded with blended 
 love and power. Quiet but always tasteful in the style 
 of her dress, her rich, wavy, dark brown hair brought 
 down over the cheek and carried back behind the 
 ears, her face lit with alternately soft and brilliant 
 
92 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 blue gray eyes, their pupils so large and dilating as 
 to cause them often to be taken for black, a bright, 
 almost hectic glow of color on her cheeks, with her 
 shapely head set on a neck so long, flexile, and grace- 
 ful as to impart an air of distinction to her carriage, 
 all the accounts which have come down from this 
 period of her career call up a personality preeminently 
 fitted to sway those brought into contact with her in 
 her higher moods of inspiration. 
 
 Apart, moreover, from this training in self-control 
 and power to set aside alike wile or violence in the 
 attempt to block her way, Miss Dix had learned an- 
 other lesson through this her first experience in dealing 
 with a legislative body. It was the lesson of concen- 
 trating effort on the work of leading the leaders. 
 Personally, she never cared to appear in public. It 
 was thoroughly distasteful to her to do so. She made 
 no addresses, she gathered no meetings. To come 
 to close quarters of eye, conscience, and heart with 
 impressionable and influential minds, to deliver her 
 burden as from the Lord to them, and let it work on 
 their sensibility and reason, this was her invaria- 
 ble method. Dr. Howe had hit the centre when he 
 said, " If I touch off the piece, it will be you who 
 furnish the ammunition." For the public eclat of the 
 explosion she cared little ; for the quality and quan- 
 tity of the gunpowder and the penetrating power of 
 the ball, everything. Practical relief brought to the 
 outcast and miserable, the enlisting in their behalf 
 every possible order of ability, philanthropic, political, 
 judicial, religious, this was her grand object. 
 
 One farther lesson, however, the greatest and most 
 far-reaching of all, had Miss Dix learned from her ex- 
 perience in Massachusetts. While there pursuing her 
 
SUCCESS OF THE FIRST MEMORIAL. 93 
 
 investigations, she had again and again crossed the 
 border into other States, notably into Connecticut and 
 Khode Island. The conviction thus steadily and irresis- 
 tibly forced on her was that all over the United /States, 
 from Maine to Florida, from the Atlantic to the Mis- 
 sissippi, the same appalling story held true of the 
 wretched fate of the pauper insane. Everywhere, " in- 
 sane persons confined in cages, closets, cellars, stalls, 
 pens ; chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed 
 into obedience ! " The piteous words of her own Me- 
 morial came back to her, echoed and reechoed from 
 every side. But, God be praised, not to depress or 
 daunt her, not to make her cry in despair, " What, in 
 the way of relief, is one little drop in such an ocean of 
 misery ? " No, but only to challenge the heroic temper 
 of her mind, and start the thrilling thought, " If one 
 legislature can thus be besieged and carried by storm, 
 why not another, and another, and another ! " 
 
 Now first broke upon her the length and breadth 
 of the mission to which she felt herself divinely 
 called. Resolutely and untiringly, State by State, 
 would she take up the work ; first exhaustively accu- 
 mulating the facts and " preparing the ammunition," 
 and then investing and besieging the various legisla- 
 tures, till they should capitulate to the cry of the per- 
 ishing within their borders. In deliberately planning, 
 as she did thus early in her career, so vast a cam- 
 paign, was revealed the greatness and compass of her 
 mind. The splendors and audacities of moral genius 
 now flashed out in her. Far more than simply a good 
 and merciful woman was here. Here was a woman 
 with the grasp of intellect, the fertility of resources, 
 and the indomitable force of will that go to the make-up 
 of a great statesman or a great military commander. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 RHODE ISLAND NEXT. 
 
 IT was during the two years, 1841-43, in which 
 Miss Dix was diligently pursuing her investigations 
 in Massachusetts, that her leisure time was first sys- 
 tematically devoted to the study of the most advanced 
 methods in the humane and scientific treatment of in- 
 sanity. Dr. Woodward of the Worcester Asylum, 
 Dr. Luther V. Bell of the McLean, and Dr. John S. 
 Butler of the newly erected Lunatic Hospital of Bos- 
 ton were her chief teachers. With Dr. Butler, in es- 
 pecial, she was brought into very intimate relations. 
 Himself a man of great natural benevolence, he had, 
 in 1833, when beginning the practice of medicine in 
 Worcester, come in contact with that remarkable pio- 
 neer in the American history of insanity, Dr. Wood- 
 ward, and witnessed at his hands what seemed to him 
 such miraculous triumphs in the restoration to sanity 
 of violent madmen as to feel that a new and brighter 
 day was dawning on the world. " Doctor, if Llewel- 
 lyn can be cured," he said of a seemingly desperate 
 case brought under his observation, and which later 
 on was cured, " it will be next to a revelation in medi- 
 cine to me ! " 
 
 The strong attraction always exerted over original 
 and experimental minds by demonstrations of a new, 
 positive force to deal with, now took such hold on Dr. 
 Butler as to convince him that this was the true field 
 
ERODE ISLAND NEXT. 95 
 
 for him to enter. Appointed, in 1839, superinten- 
 dent of the Lunatic Hospital of Boston, he very soon 
 brought to bear such tact and skill, such courage and 
 patience, such power of sympathy and personal mag- 
 netism, as to work changes in the condition of his 
 patients as marked as those wrought by Pinel, Tuke, 
 and Conolly. 
 
 Speaking of this institution in 1842, the " North 
 American Review " says, in an article on Insanity in 
 Massachusetts : 
 
 " Its patients are wholly of the pauper class. Its inmates 
 are of the worst and most hopeless class of cases. They are 
 the raving madman and the gibbering idiot, whom, in the 
 language of the inspectors of prisons, hospitals, etc., for Suf- 
 folk County, we had formerly seen tearing their clothes 
 amid cold, lacerating their bodies, contracting most filthy 
 habits, without self-control, unable to restrain the worst 
 feelings, endeavoring to injure those that approached them, 
 giving vent to their irritation in the most passionate, pro- 
 fane, and filthy language, fearing and feared, hating and 
 almost hated. Now they are all neatly clad by day, and 
 comfortably lodged in separate rooms by night. They walk 
 quietly, with self-respect, along their spacious and airy halls, 
 or sit in listening groups around the daily paper, or dig in 
 the garden, or handle edged tools, or stroll around the 
 neighborhood with kind and careful attendants. They at- 
 tend daily and reverently upon religious exercises, and make 
 glad music with their united voices." 
 
 Eminently fortunate, then, was it for Miss Dix that 
 she was thus enabled to become the pupil of Dr. But- 
 ler, and to witness with her own eyes the actual trans- 
 formation of the raging madhouse of the past into 
 the humane retreat of the present, a transformation 
 which is unquestionably the most marvelous triumph 
 ever won by the moral reason of man over brute 
 
96 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 chaos. " Look on this picture and on this ! " thus 
 became the more than Hamlet cry of her heart. 
 
 Already has it been stated that, while engaged in 
 her special investigations in Massachusetts, Miss Dix 
 had frequently crossed the border into other States. 
 In Rhode Island had she struck upon scenes of misery 
 to which she made haste to call the attention of be- 
 nevolent minds. Prominent among these friends of 
 humanity was Thomas G. Hazard, who wrote at this 
 time to a friend : 
 
 " In the course of her investigations she has ferreted out 
 some cases of human suffering almost beyond conception or 
 belief. one case in a neighboring town to this, of which I 
 was yesterday an eye-witness, which went beyond any- 
 thing I supposed to exist in the civilized world, and which, 
 without exaggeration, I believe was seldom equaled in the 
 dark ages, the particulars of which she will describe to 
 you." 
 
 The case to which Thomas G. Hazard alluded was 
 that of Abram Simmons, confined in a dungeon in 
 Little Compton, R. I. To it Miss Dix later called 
 public attention, in the " Providence Journal " of 
 April 10, 1844, in an article entitled " Astonishing 
 Tenacity of Life." The article illustrates the inten- 
 sity of feeling and the vigor of style characteristic of 
 her efforts at this period to shake the apathy of the 
 public mind. It is not written over her own signa- 
 ture. When possible, she always preferred to keep 
 herself in the background, and to refer to the testi- 
 mony of others, in this instance to that of Thomas 
 G. Hazard. 
 
 "ASTONISHING TENACITY OF LIFE. 
 
 " It is said that grains of wheat, taken from within the 
 envelope of Egyptian mummies some thousand of years old, 
 

 RHODE ISLAND NEXT. 97 
 
 have been found to germinate and grow in a number of in- 
 stances. Even toads and other reptiles have been found 
 alive in situations where it is evident that they must have 
 been encased for many hundreds, if not thousands, of years. 
 
 " It may, however, be doubted whether any instance has 
 ever occurred in the history of the race where the vital 
 principle has adhered so tenaciously to the human body un- 
 der such a load and complication of sufferings and tortures 
 as in the case of Abram Simmons, an insane man, who has 
 been confined for several years in a dungeon in the town of 
 Little Compton, in this State. 
 
 " The writer accidentally met a gentleman this morning 
 from that town, who recounted the following facts, with 
 leave to publish them, and there can be no doubt that they 
 are correct. 
 
 ** He stated that he^ visited the cell of Abram Simmons 
 during the past winter. His prison was from six to eight 
 feet square, built entirely of stone, sides, roof, and 
 floor, and entered through two iron doors, excluding both 
 light and fresh air, and entirely without accommodation of 
 any description for warming and ventilating. At that time 
 the internal surface of the walls was covered with a thick 
 frost, adhering to the stone in some places to the thickness 
 of half an inch, as ascertained by actual measurement. 
 The only bed was a small sacking stuffed with straw, lying 
 on a narrow iron bedstead, with two comfortables for a 
 cover. The bed itself was wet, and the outside comfortable 
 was completely saturated with the drippings from the walls, 
 and stiffly frozen. Thus, in utter darkness, encased on 
 every side by walls of frost, his garments constantly more 
 or less wet, with only wet straw to lie upon, and a sheet of 
 ice for his covering, has this most dreadfully abused man 
 existed through the past inclement winter. . . . His teeth 
 must have been worn out by constant and violent chattering 
 for such a length of time, night and day, 
 
 " Poor Tom 'Ba-cold!' 
 
98 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 " Should any persons in this philanthropic age be disposed, 
 from motives of curiosity, to visit the place, they may rest 
 assured that traveling is considered quite safe in that part 
 of the country, however improbable it may seem. The 
 people of that region profess the Christian religion, and it is 
 even said that they have adopted some forms and ceremonies 
 which they call worship. It is not probable, however, that 
 they address themselves to poor Simmons' God. Their 
 worship, mingling with the prayers of agony which he 
 shrieks forth from his dreary abode, would make strange 
 discord in the ear of that Almighty Being, in whose keeping 
 sleeps the vengeance due to all his wrongs." 
 
 Later on, in a public document of her own, Miss 
 Dix gives the narrative of her first visit to Little 
 Compton. As it throws farther light alike on the 
 courageous mercy with which she went about her 
 work, and on the character of the persons in whose 
 charge such poor wretches were placed, it seems need- 
 ful to give it. After investigating carefully the con- 
 dition of two or three miserable beings confined there, 
 and being warned not to attempt to go into the cell of 
 Simmons, as he would surely kill her, she proceeds as 
 follows with her narrative : 
 
 " ' Your other patient, where is he ? ' * You shall see ; 
 but stay outside till I get a lantern.' Accustomed to explor- 
 ing cells and dungeons in the basements and cellars of poor- 
 houses and prisons, I concluded that the insane man spoken 
 of was confined in some such dark, damp retreat. Weary 
 and oppressed, I leaned against an iron door which closed 
 the sole entrance to a singular stone structure, much resem- 
 bling a tomb, yet its use in the courtyard of the poorhouse 
 was not apparent. Soon, low, smothered groans and moans 
 reached me, as if from the buried alive. At this moment 
 the mistress advanced, with keys and a lantern. ' He 's 
 here,' said she, unlocking the strong, solid iron door. A 
 
RHODE ISLAND NEXT. 99 
 
 step down, and short turn through a narrow passage to the 
 right, brought us, after a few steps, to a second iron door 
 parallel to the first, and equally solid. In like manner, this 
 was unlocked and opened ; but so terribly noxious was the 
 poisonous air that immediately pervaded the passage, that 
 a considerable time elapsed before I was able to return and 
 remain long enough to investigate this horrible den. Lan- 
 guage is too weak to convey an idea of the scene presented. 
 The candle was remote from the scene, and the flickering 
 rays partly illuminated a spectacle never to be forgotten. 
 The place, when closed, had no source of light or of ventila- 
 tion. It was about seven feet by seven, and six and a half 
 high. All, even the roof, was of stone. An iron frame 
 interlaced with rope, was the sole furniture. The place 
 was filthy, damp, and noisome ; and the inmate, the crazy 
 man, the helpless and dependent creature, cast by the will 
 of Providence on the cares and sympathies of his fellow- 
 man, there he stood, near the door, motionless and silent ; 
 his tangled hair fell about his shoulders ; his bare feet 
 pressed the filthy, wet stone floor ; he was emaciated to a 
 shadow, etiolated, and more resembled a disinterred corpse 
 than any living creature. Never have I looked upon an 
 object so pitiable, so woe-struck, so imaging despair. I 
 took his hands and endeavored to warm them by gentle fric- 
 tion. I spoke to him of release, of liberty, of care and 
 kindness. Notwithstanding the assertions of the mistress 
 that he would kill me, I persevered. A tear stole over the 
 hollow cheek, but no words answered to my importunities ; 
 no other movement indicated consciousness of perception or 
 of sensibility. In moving a little forward I struck against 
 something which returned a sharp metallic sound ; it was a 
 length of ox-chain, connected to an iron ring which encircled 
 a leg of the insane man. At one extremity it was joined to 
 what is termed a solid chain, namely, bars of iron eighteen 
 inches or two feet long, linked together, and at one end 
 connected by a staple to the rock overhead. ' My husband,' 
 said the mistress, ' in winter rakes out sometimes, of a morn- 
 
100 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 ing, half a bushel of frost, and yet he never freezes ; ' refer- 
 ring to the oppressed and life-stricken maniac before us. 
 1 Sometimes he screams dreadfully,' she added, ' and that is 
 the reason we had the double wall, and two doors in place 
 of one ; his cries disturbed us in the house.' ' How long 
 has he been here ? ' ' Oh, above three years ; but then he 
 was kept a long while in a cage first ; but once he broke his 
 chains and the bars, and escaped ; so we had this built, 
 where he can't get off.' Get off ! No, indeed ; as \vell 
 might the buried dead break through the sealed gates of the 
 tomb ! " 
 
 What was the first practicable step toward provid- 
 ing fit accommodation and care for the miserable 
 creatures she had found all over the State of Rhode 
 Island ? There already existed a small asylum in the 
 city of Providence, conducted on wise and humane 
 principles. But it was totally inadequate to the de- 
 mands made on it. Still it furnished a good founda- 
 tion, and an appeal to the wealthy and humane for 
 means toward its immediate enlargement seemed the 
 wisest present course. 
 
 In this juncture was it that the extraordinary power 
 of Miss Dix to reach the heart and purse of those 
 whom every one else failed to move showed its first 
 proof. Among the list of persons to whom she had 
 resolved to make appeal was Mr. Cyrus Butler, a 
 man of large business capacity, who ultimately left 
 an estate of $4,000,000, but who, like so many men 
 absorbed in the pursuit of wealth, had contracted a 
 passion for accumulation that rendered it well-nigh 
 impossible to persuade him to give a dollar away. 
 People smiled significantly when Miss Dix announced 
 her intention of calling upon him, and expressed the 
 usual sentiment about getting " milk out of a stone." 
 
RHODE ISLAND NEXT. 101 
 
 " But none of these things moved her." Her faith in 
 human nature, if only strongly and wisely enough ap- 
 pealed to, was invincible. 
 
 Accompanied, therefore, to the house of Mr. Butler 
 by Rev. Edward B. Hall, D. D., of Providence, who 
 left her at the door, she made the momentous visit. 
 It was a singular interview. For some time, through 
 sheer force of lifelong habit, Mr. Butler sought to 
 put her off by diverting the conversation to the famil- 
 iar but rather unprofitable topic of the weather. So 
 great is the variety of weather in Rhode Island, as 
 well as in her sister State of Massachusetts, that whole 
 days might thus have been spent without exhausting 
 the subject. Preserving her temper and self-control, 
 Miss Dix pleasantly adjusted herself to the humor of 
 the scene, until finally, feeling that the thing had gone 
 far enough, she rose with commanding dignity, and 
 said : " Mr. Butler, I wish you to hear what I have to 
 say. I want to bring before you certain facts, in- 
 volving terrible suffering to your fellow-creatures all 
 around you suffering you can relieve. My duty 
 will end when I have done this, and with you will 
 then rest all further responsibility." Then, quietly, 
 clearly, and with suppressed emotion, she told the 
 pathetic story of what she had seen with her own eyes. 
 She told it as though, there in that parlor, were 
 standing for judgment two accountable beings before 
 the tribunal of poor Simmons' avenging God. Mr. 
 Butler listened spellbound till she was through, and 
 then abruptly said, "Miss Dix, what do you want 
 me to do?" "Sir, I want you to give 150,000 toward 
 the enlargement of the insane hospital in this city ! " 
 " Madam, I '11 do it ! " was his answer. 
 
 While a signal spiritual triumph to Miss Dix, such 
 
102 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 an interview reflects honor on both parties. Under- 
 neath the hard crust induced by a life of ceaseless 
 addiction to accumulation, it showed the beating of a 
 genuine human heart, prompt to respond to the plead- 
 ing of such an angel of mercy. The parting with 
 $50,000 by a purely business man, to whom it might 
 mean a prospective million, involves a mental wrench 
 of which few can appreciate the intensity. Probably 
 there was not another woman in the land who could 
 have commanded such combined power of cogent 
 statement and impassioned fervor as thus, in an hour, 
 to reverse all the deeply rooted habit of a lifetime. 
 The feat attracted great attention at the time in 
 Providence, and afterwards gave rise to many exag- 
 gerated stories which went the rounds of the news- 
 papers, stories, some of which Miss Dix was at 
 pains publicly to contradict in the press. Indeed, she 
 always spoke of Mr. Butler with sincere respect, and 
 felt most gratefully his service to the cause she had so 
 close at heart. 
 
 The name of the asylum was now changed to that 
 of the " Butler Hospital," the hospital in which for 
 long years Dr. Isaac Ray proved so invaluable a 
 helper to every shape of mental disease. Later on, 
 farther handsome endowments were made to it by Mr. 
 Alexander Duncan, who had married the niece of 
 Mr. Butler, the heiress to his great fortune. 
 
 Thus was secured Miss Dix's second asylum victory. 
 In two States already, Massachusetts and Rhode 
 Island, had she been the instrument of prospectively 
 transferring from loathsome dungeons and inhuman 
 treatment to fresh air, freedom from chains, and wise 
 and kindly supervision, several hundred wretched 
 creatures, and in awakening a public sentiment that 
 
RHODE ISLAND NEXT. 103 
 
 was the pledge of a better order of things in the fu- 
 ture. The " Look on this picture and on this ! " was 
 taking tangible shape in a way to gladden her benev- 
 olent heart. 
 
 Little time did she now waste in denouncing the 
 inhumanity of jailers and almshouse keepers in their 
 treatment of the insane. That average human nature 
 should finally grow exasperated over such shapes of 
 perversity ; that ordinary and ignorant men and wo- 
 men, rendered sleepless by midnight yells of profanity 
 and indecency, or kept in terror of fire or violence, 
 should finally give way thoroughly to the " wild-beast 
 theory," and feel that cellars, out-houses, and iron 
 cages were the only safe places in which to chain up 
 the more desperate cases, was no more than what was 
 rationally to be expected. The only relief lay, she 
 clearly saw, in multiplying institutions, presided over 
 by men of the science, elevation of character, and ex- 
 ceptional endowment of patient insight requisite for 
 exorcising such seeming demoniacal possession. 
 
CHAPTEK XL 
 
 MY FIRST-BORN CHILD. 
 
 SUCCESSFUL, however, as Miss Dix had been in 
 providing for the immediate exigency in Khode Island 
 through an appeal to private charity, she soon saw 
 with increasing clearness the utter inadequacy of such 
 measures to afford relief on the scale that was impera- 
 tively demanded. The farther she pushed her investi- 
 gations, the vaster and more wide spread was discov- 
 ered to be the evil to be coped with. Comparatively 
 few of the States of the Union had as yet any State 
 asylums. The power of public taxation, on a scale 
 adequate to the work to be accomplished, must now, 
 she felt, be evoked ; more even than this, the people 
 of the States must be wrought to a pitch of enlighten- 
 ment and mercy at which they would feel willing and 
 glad to be taxed. 
 
 It was in the State of New Jersey, and with the 
 foundation of the asylum at Trenton, that Miss Dix 
 began this, her far larger and more characteristic 
 work, the work no longer of supplementing the defi- 
 ciencies of institutions already existing, but of creat- 
 ing institutions de novo and out of nothing. There, 
 in Trenton, was it that she went through the travail 
 of bearing beneath her heart what she ever after 
 characterized as her " first-born child," owing its 
 whole life to her as mother. There, forty-five years 
 later, was she herself, worn out with toil, age, and 
 
MY FIRST-BORN CHILD. 105 
 
 disease, to die, in apartments gratefully tendered for 
 her free use by the trustees of the institution ; and 
 there, in those last days of weariness and pain, was it 
 that, when one morning her faithful friend and physi- 
 cian, Dr. John W. Ward, the superintendent of the. 
 asylum, came into her room with the joyful intelli- 
 gence that he was father of his first-born child, she 
 broke out, " Yes, and born under the roof of my first- 
 born child ! " 
 
 As the work of Miss Dix in first breaking ground 
 in the State of New Jersey, in creating there a new 
 and effective public sentiment, and in finally getting 
 this sentiment embodied in positive legislative action, 
 was, alike in its tactics, its courage, its persistence, 
 and its power of moral ascendency, the same which 
 she repeated so marvelously in a whole round of 
 States, it seems best to treat this as a typical instance 
 of her constant rule of action, and to go somewhat 
 circumstantially into the story of the nature of the 
 helps and hindrances she there, as everywhere, encoun- 
 tered. To attempt the same of all the great pub- 
 lic institutions of which she was, single-handed, the 
 founder, would be to fill many volumes. One exam- 
 ple, vividly conceived, will suffice the reader for all. 
 
 First and foremost, she went forth quietly and 
 alone. No trumpet announced that a distinguished 
 philanthropist was about to probe to the bottom the 
 moral condition of the State, to champion the op- 
 pressed, and to prove a terror to evil doers. Here 
 was no excitable novice in hunting, noisily scaring 
 up the game before the piece was charged and the 
 finger on the trigger, ready to shoot. In truth, few 
 knew, or so much as suspected, the fact that a quietly 
 dressed woman was moving about from county to 
 
106 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 county, taking notes of the condition of every jail and 
 almshouse. Thus, foul secrets that would have been 
 carefully hidden away from regularly appointed com- 
 mittees stopping first tumultuously to dine and 
 wine at the public tavern, were contemptuously ex- 
 posed to this unheralded, supposedly uninfluential 
 woman. Meanwhile, nothing escaped her trained eye, 
 and before people dreamed what she was doing she 
 had gathered her statistics, and was master of the 
 position. She had now her fulcrum and her Archi- 
 medes lever, through which she felt she could lift a 
 world of moral apathy. 
 
 This preliminary work done, and thoroughly done, 
 the second resort of Miss Dix was always to her power 
 of direct personal influence over the leaders of the 
 social and political world. A born leader herself, her 
 instinct for detecting the gift of leadership in others 
 was well-nigh infallible. " Her insight into charac- 
 ter," says of her Dr. P. Bryce, superintendent of the 
 asylum at Tuscaloosa, Alabama, " was truly marvel- 
 ous ; and I have never met any one, man or woman, 
 who bore more distinctly the mark of intellectuality." 
 For large numbers of self-supposed men of weight and 
 influence, she entertained a quiet, well-disguised con- 
 tempt. Well disguised, however, it always was ; they 
 never found it out. She was careful to make no ene- 
 mies whenever she could help it; for so thoroughly 
 did she identify herself with her cause, as to feel that 
 enmity to her would mean enmity to it. Many and 
 many the humble country member of the legislature, a 
 man of few words, but those words rocks, who was 
 recognized by her, if for no other quality but honest 
 stubbornness in maintaining a position once taken, as 
 in reality a more important factor to be reckoned with 
 
MY FIRST-BORN CHILD. 107 
 
 than a score of noisy, bustling politicians. Especially 
 among the plain Quakers of New Jersey, men and 
 women, did she recruit stanch supporters, who, once 
 enlisted, never deserted the ranks. 
 
 From the moment, however, when it became the 
 question of practically engineering a bill through the 
 legislature, then it was another matter, and she im- 
 peratively insisted on putting the full management 
 into the hands of men of first-rate political ability, 
 men humane, indeed, and sincerely interested, but 
 men abreast with every device and trick of the enemy. 
 Her Memorial once written, charged to the cannon's 
 mouth with grape and canister, and, behind it, the 
 explosive fulminate of her own latent passion, then 
 the question of who should " touch off the piece," to 
 recur to Dr. Howe's apt figure of speech, whether 
 some one who would aim at nothing and hit nothing, 
 or some one who should discharge it straight into the 
 thickest ranks, was to her an issue, as all important 
 as, with Napoleon or Nelson, that of who should han- 
 dle his artillery or point his broadsides. 
 
 Just here, in the profound influence she exercised 
 over many of these leaders, and in her consequent 
 power to secure from them the most chivalrous ser- 
 vice, lay one marked secret of Miss Dix's unexampled 
 success. By a sure instinct of compassion, she speedily 
 found her way into the heart of every household where 
 affliction was on hand. There was, it might be, an in- 
 valid wife in the home, or a young daughter wasting 
 away with disease, or a promising son blighted on the 
 threshold of life by threatened or actual insanity.* 
 Into these households she stole, an angel of consola- 
 tion, her sustaining power in all hours of darkness and 
 pain a marvel to those uplifted by it. At last came the 
 
108 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 day when this was remembered in some memorable act. 
 Let a single example of how remembered suffice. The 
 especial case here instanced was communicated to the 
 writer of this biography by Dr. Eugene Grissom, 
 superintendent of the Insane Asylum at Ealeigh, 
 North Carolina, and, though occurring in another State 
 than New Jersey, still illustrates a frequently repeated 
 experience in Miss Dix's efforts at passing her hospi- 
 tal bills. 
 
 " The first appropriation bill looking to the erection of an 
 asylum in North Carolina was defeated. Mrs. Dobbin, wife 
 of Hon. James C. Dobbin, of Fayetteville, afterwards Sec- 
 retary of the Navy, was very sick at Raleigh. Her husband 
 was a member of the House. On her death-bed she ex- 
 pressed to Miss Dix her deep gratitude for the tender care 
 that noble woman had given her in her own illness, and, 
 almost with her dying breath, begged her gifted husband 
 to repay her own debt of gratitude to Miss Dix by another 
 effort to pass the asylum bill. 
 
 " Almost as soon as the last sad services of interment 
 were ended, Mr. Dobbin entered the House, clad in the 
 deepest mourning and broken with sorrow. He entered at 
 once on the fulfillment of the duty he owed to the pious dead 
 and the afflicted living. Feeling keenly his own bereave- 
 ment and cherishing sympathy for the woes of others, sus- 
 tained by the profound sympathy that moved every bosom, 
 he redeemed nobly his last promise to a dying wife by a 
 speech which made a great impression at the time, and the 
 tradition of which has descended to this generation. . . . 
 All was favorable to the orator. His own nature was moved 
 to its very depths. His heart was softened and made ten- 
 der by a distressing bereavement. Gratitude to Miss Dix, 
 deep sympathy for the smitten of God, a yearning desire to 
 help the unfortunate, all moved the gifted and generous 
 North Carolinian, and he rose to the great demands of the 
 
MY FIRST-BORN CHILD. 109 
 
 occasion and the height of the argument, producing an ora- 
 tion rarely equaled. All opposition disappeared under the 
 power of the eloquent and pathetic pleader, and the bill 
 passed by an overwhelming vote." 
 
 Almost from the start of Miss Dix's career in her 
 work of carrying the State legislatures, so profound 
 was the impression made by her exceptional personal- 
 ity that an especial room, or separate alcove in the 
 library, was habitually set apart for her, in which to 
 be visited by the members. There she studied with 
 eager scrutiny the list of the representatives in the 
 Assembly, endeavoring to find out as far as possible 
 the character of each for humanity or self-seeking, 
 courage or servility to public opinion. Before very 
 long she knew them thoroughly, many of them far 
 more thoroughly than they ever knew themselves. 
 She did not, however, herself enter the halls of legis- 
 lation, nor seek interviews of the members in their 
 homes or in the lobbies. Always she laid great stress 
 on preserving her womanly dignity, and saw plainly 
 how easy it was to vulgarize alike a cause and its rep- 
 resentative by a pushing and teasing demeanor. Mem- 
 bers of either house were brought in by influential 
 friends to her own room or alcove, and there she 
 wrought on them in every way of cogent argument 
 and eloquent entreaty. The only exception to this, of 
 a slightly more public nature, was her habit of inviting 
 into the parlor of her boarding-house from fifteen to 
 twenty gentlemen at a time, for conversation and dis- 
 cussion. 
 
 When once her Memorial had been read to the 
 legislature, and then, through the medium of the news- 
 papers, had been brought before the general public, 
 she next worked with energy the instrumentality of 
 
110 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 the press, writing for it innumerable articles herself, 
 and enlisting in the same service all who wielded elo- 
 quent pens. To rouse all over the State a powerful 
 public opinion was an aim she never lost sight of, no 
 one knowing more clearly the subserviency to it of 
 politicians. 
 
 To return now, from these more general statements 
 of Miss Dix's methods, to the immediate case of the 
 passage of the New Jersey bill, which ushered into 
 the world her first-born asylum child. 
 
 It was first on January 23, 1845, that her Memorial 
 to the legislature of New Jersey was presented to the 
 Senate by Miss Dix's stanch supporter, Hon. Joseph 
 S. Dodd. Like all her public papers, it was written 
 with great ability, and embodied a judicious blending 
 of pathetic appeal with strong rational argument. 
 Less nakedly terrible than the Massachusetts Memo- 
 rial, it was more tender in its spirit ; fuller, indeed, 
 of the comforting hope of the redeeming Purgatorio 
 than of the despair of the rayless Inferno. Gleams 
 of light are thrown on the gratitude in the hearts of 
 the poor sufferers for the smallest attempts to allevi- 
 ate their miseries, as will be seen in the following ex- 
 tracts : 
 
 " One whom I was so fortunate as to have removed to a 
 situation of greater comfort, and to supply with some of the 
 common necessaries of common life, said, raising his trem- 
 bling arms reverently, ' God's spirit hids this message to 
 you, saying it is His work you are doing ; lo, it shall pros- 
 per in your hands ! ' ... Another, a female, whose scarred 
 limbs bore marks of the cankering iron worn for many 
 weary years, said, ' I could curse those who chain me like 
 a brute beast, and I do, too, but sometimes the soft voice 
 says, Pray for thine enemy, and this it sings often while 
 
3/y FIRST-BORN CHILD. Ill 
 
 the sun shines on the poor mind ; but darkness comes, and 
 then the thoughts are evil continually, and the soul is 
 black ! ' " 
 
 How, farther, all classes, rich as well as poor, highly 
 intellectual as well as feeble-minded, are exposed alike 
 to the visitation of this fearful scourge was strikingly 
 illustrated by instances of which the following gives a 
 touching example : 
 
 " On a level with the cellar, in a basement room, which 
 was tolerably decent, but bare enough of comforts, lay, upon 
 a small bed, a feeble, aged man, whose few gray locks fell 
 tangled about his pillow. As we entered, he addressed one 
 present, saying, ' I am all broken up, all broken up ! ' * Do 
 you feel much weaker, then, Judge ? ' * The mind, the mind 
 is going, almost gone,' responded he, in tones of touching 
 sadness. ' Yes,' he continued, murmuring to himself, ' the 
 mind is going.' This feeble, depressed old man, a pauper, 
 helpless, lonely, and yet conscious of surrounding circum- 
 stances, and not now wholly oblivious of the past, this 
 feeble old man, who was he ? I answer as I was answered ; 
 but he is not unknown to many of you. In his young and 
 vigorous years he filled various places of honor and trust 
 among you. His ability as a lawyer raised him to the bench. 
 As a jurist, he was distinguished for uprightness, clearness, 
 and impartiality. He also was judge of the orphans' court. 
 He was for many years a member of the legislature. His 
 habits were correct, and I could learn, from those who had 
 known him for many years, nothing to his discredit, but 
 much that commends men to honor and respect. The me- 
 ridian of an active and useful life was passed ; the property, 
 honestly acquired, on which he relied for comfortable sup- 
 port during his declining years was lost through some of 
 those fluctuations which so often produce reverses for thou- 
 sands. He became insane, and his insanity assumed the 
 form of frenzy ; he was chained ' for safety.' " 
 
112 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 The Memorial, once presented to the Senate, as 
 above stated, by Hon. Joseph S. Dodd, was followed by 
 him with the immediate preamble and resolution : 
 
 "Whereas the expediency of erecting a State Lunatic 
 Asylum having been at various times under the considera- 
 tion of the legislature of this State, and it appearing by the 
 facts now before us in relation to this subject that we 
 greatly need such an establishment, therefore 
 
 " Resolved, by the Senate and General Assembly of the 
 State of New Jersey, that the time has now arrived when it 
 is the duty of the State to enter upon the execution of this 
 work by the adoption of the necessary measures for that 
 purpose during the present session of the legislature." 
 
 This was read and ordered to lie on the table for 
 the present. 
 
 The next day Mr. Dodd saw it to be necessary to 
 modify the previous resolution by calling for a joint 
 committee of both houses for farther consideration of 
 the subject. The resolution was passed, and Messrs. 
 Dodd, Wurts, and Willets were appointed on the 
 part of the Senate, and, later on, Messrs. Evans, 
 Bond, Pierson, and Fort on the part of the House of 
 Assembly. 
 
 By February 25 the joint committee made their re- 
 port. They declared it unnecessary for them to oc- 
 cupy farther time, as they could " only repeat what is 
 better said in the Memorial of Miss Dix, . . . which 
 presents the whole subject in so lucid a manner as to 
 supersede the necessity of farther remark from us." 
 The report concluded with the following* fervid ap- 
 peal : 
 
 " Is then our path any longer doubtful ? Have we not 
 every indication by the facts in our possession that the time 
 has now arrived for entering at once upon this enterprise, 
 
MY FIRST-BORN CHILD. 113 
 
 so dear to the philanthropist, the Christian, and the patriot, 
 and inseparably connected with the welfare of those for 
 whom it is designed ; an enterprise whose beneficent opera- 
 tion will be felt not only by this, but by generations to come 
 after us, and, as we hope, through all future time ; an en- 
 terprise that will reflect more lasting honor on the State, 
 and tell more upon human happiness, than all our legisla- 
 tion for the last half century ? We are behind the move- 
 ments of the age and the spirit of the times. Let us be up 
 and doing ; we are behind our sister States. Many of them 
 have already moved forward in this field of humane exer- 
 tion with a zeal and liberality that do them honor ; and 
 shall we, Jerseymen, who are proud of the name, be left far 
 in the distance or not move at all, sitting still, with our 
 arms folded in inglorious sloth, satisfied if we can reap, 
 though partially, the benefit of their labors, rather than 
 provide for ourselves those privileges for which we are now 
 dependent on them ?" 
 
 In Miss Dix's habitual experience in dealing with 
 State legislatures, so thoroughly had at this stage of 
 the proceedings the preliminary work been done that, 
 as a rule, the higher-minded members of both Houses 
 and the more enlightened portion of the community 
 might now be relied on as genuine converts to the 
 measure. Just at this point, however, usually began 
 the real tug of war with another class of minds. 
 After the first outburst of generous enthusiasm, a 
 reaction was sure to set in. However pitiful the 
 hearts of constituents, still every bill involving inevi- 
 table increase of taxation is sure to search those 
 acutely sensitive nerves that have their terminal pe- 
 ripheries in the pocket. Now comes the chance of the 
 demagogue, eager to make capital out of his cham- 
 pionship of the interests of an already overburdened 
 
114 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 public ; now the day of fear and quaking to the timid 
 member, who feels his chance of reelection at stake, 
 should he venture to vote for the proposed measure. 
 " By the way," said, at a later date, to Miss Dix, a 
 friend with whom she was talking, " a gentleman of 
 the House told me that the biggest gun that was lev- 
 eled to defeat his reelection, was the fact of having 
 voted to publish your Memorial." " What did he an- 
 swer ? " " Why, that he would have been proud of 
 such a defeat ! " But large numbers were of a more 
 lowly frame of mind, and felt no such lofty pride in 
 the prospect of political martyrdom. 
 
 Here, then, was the crisis in which Miss Dix always 
 found the severest and most unremitting work imposed 
 upon her. She was up every morning before sunrise, 
 writing letters and editorials ; through all the hours of 
 the session she was holding private interviews with 
 members; in the evenings, as often as possible, she 
 was arguing with and entreating a company of fifteen 
 to twenty specially invited to her parlor, generally 
 the most obstinate cases to deal with. Only at mid- 
 night did she seek her pillow. It was exhausting 
 work, for on her individual power to ray out light 
 enough to illuminate ignorant minds, and to radiate 
 heat and glow enough to kindle the apathetic, turned 
 the whole issue. A glimpse into her own hours, alike 
 of depression and of joy, is caught in the following 
 letter of this date to her friend Mrs. Hare, of Phila- 
 delphia : 
 
 " I must write to you, I must have your sympathy. How 
 I long for your heart-charming smile ! Just now I need 
 calmness ; I am exhausted under this perpetual effort and 
 exercise of fortitude. At Trenton, thus far, all is pros- 
 perous, but you cannot imagine the labor of conversing and 
 
MY FIRST-BORN CHILD. 115 
 
 convincing. Some evenings I had at once twenty gentlemen 
 for three hours' steady conversation. The last evening, a 
 rough country member, who had announced in the House 
 that the ' wants of the insane in New Jersey were all hum- 
 bug,' and who came to overwhelm me with his arguments, 
 after listening an hour and a half with wonderful patience 
 to my details and to principles of treatment, suddenly 
 moved into the middle of the parlor, and thus delivered 
 himself : ' Ma'am, I bid you good-night ! I do not want, 
 for my part, to hear anything more ; the others can stay if 
 they want to. I am convinced ; you 've conquered me out 
 and out ; I shall vote for the hospital. If you '11 come to 
 the House, and talk there as you 've done here, no man that 
 is n't a brute can stand you ; and so, when a man 's con- 
 vinced, that 's enough. The Lord bless you ! ' and there- 
 upon he departed." 
 
 No doubt Miss Dix went to bed that night in a 
 happy and grateful frame of mind. In these individ- 
 ual victories, constantly repeated, lay the hidingplace 
 of her power. But there remained always a plenty 
 of material needing conversion, and, .quite as likely as 
 not, she would wake up the following morning only to 
 read, in the newspaper report of the debate of the 
 preceding day, a speech from an " unterrified " mem- 
 ber, like the following : 
 
 " Sir, I shall not trust the estimate of these commission- 
 ers, who have devised the plan of this Egyptian Collosheum. 
 New Jersey has hitherto acted well. She has kept clear of 
 a national debt, which some folks call a national blessing. 
 Let us husband our resources. I had rather spend the 
 money in educating the children of the State, . . . qualify- 
 ing them to act their part well in life, and preparing them 
 for eternity. . . . There '11 be a day of account, and it 's 
 not far ahead. I have seldom prophesied on this floor but 
 it turned out correct True, I missed it last year. I do 
 
116 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 believe that if that Miss Dix had been paid $500 or $600, 
 and escorted over the Delaware or to Philadelphia, or even 
 $1,000, and taken to Washington city, and, if you choose, 
 enshrined in the White House, it would have been money 
 well laid out. Now, I should like the whys and wherefores 
 for a building 487 feet long and 80 feet wide, for, may be, 
 twenty lunatics. I believe that the best thing we could do, 
 would be to appropriate $200 or $300, to fill up the cellars 
 and sow them over with grass-seed, so that the spot may not 
 be seen hereafter. You could n't do a more popular act ! " 
 
 Unquestionably, the report of a speech like this 
 was read with as lively satisfaction by an elect class 
 of its author's constituents, and was as highly ap- 
 plauded for its combination of soaring imagination 
 with a strict eye to business, as the honorable mem- 
 ber could himself have desired. But this was not the 
 kind of oratory, nor was this the type of man, of whom 
 Miss Dix stood in any sort of fear. A few solid words 
 from the plain country member, who the night before 
 had said, "Ma'am, you've conquered me out and 
 out ; I '11 vote for the hospital," would, she knew, dis- 
 pose effectually of a full hour of such " spread-eagle " 
 eloquence. 
 
 The man, however, of whom she did always stand 
 in dread was the man of great natural flux of senti- 
 mental speech, who from the outset insinuated himself 
 into the minds of his audience as the friend and 
 champion of all the world's disinherited ones, never 
 failing, likewise, to make effusive allusion to herself 
 as that " Heaven-sent angel of mercy," and yet who 
 forthwith proceeded to insist that now, alas ! the exi- 
 gency had arrived when it was the stern dictate of 
 duty to control such sensibilities, even though with 
 bleeding hearts they should feel obliged to vote against 
 the bill before them. 
 
MY FIRST-BORN CHILD. 117 
 
 It may be well, therefore, in commenting on these 
 various legislative experiences to which Miss Dix had 
 to adjust herself, to give a specimen of the kind of 
 speech and the kind of man she always felt to be 
 most dangerous. The speech in question was not de- 
 livered before the New Jersey Legislature, but at an- 
 other period and in another State. Still, it is one of 
 those clear-cut, polished gems of eloquence which per- 
 fectly illustrates the case in hand. 
 
 " SENATORS. ' The liberal man,' saith Solomon, ' devis- 
 eth liberal things, and by liberal things shall he prosper.' 
 To this sentiment I respond, and hold it to be true no less 
 of States than individuals. None, sir, is a firmer friend than 
 myself to this charity. . . . 
 
 " But, sir, my experience, limited as it is, has taught me 
 that the same law governs in the moral as in the physical 
 world, and that premature development is attended by pre- 
 mature decay. . . . 
 
 " It becomes us, therefore, to be borne away by no child- 
 like sensibility, no generous enthusiasm, no over- zeal nor 
 haste to accomplish an acknowledged good. . . . 
 
 " Under these views and feelings, therefore, I am con- 
 strained, Mr. President, at this time, to oppose this project 
 under every aspect it may now assume before us. ... 
 
 " In conclusion, I should do injustice to my feelings if I 
 omitted this occasion to express my unlimited admiration of 
 the distinguished zeal and ability with which this measure 
 has been prosecuted by the remarkable lady who, it is 
 but due to her to say, has been its chief promoter and 
 friend. . . . 
 
 " Woman, Mr. President, is ever lovely, and when she 
 assumes the rare and sacred office of disinterested philan- 
 thropy she becomes indeed an angel ! " 
 
 To be called an angel, and in the same breath have 
 her bill for the relief of the outcasts of the earth voted 
 
118 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 down, was a strain of celestial compliment for which 
 Miss Dix never manifested a trace of feminine relish. 
 Much more delicately did she appreciate the testimo- 
 nial of a rough-and-ready proposition to " raise $500 
 or $600 to escort her over the Delaware or to Phila- 
 delphia, or even $1,000 to enshrine her in the White 
 House ; " for this proved demonstratively that she was 
 making so strong an impression that low-minded men 
 felt it was worth "thirty pieces of silver " to get rid 
 of affording her any further chance to " deceive the 
 people." 
 
 To conclude now this full and detailed account of 
 the passage of the bill for the establishment of the 
 New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum, an account 
 which, as before stated, must serve for a typical in- 
 stance of the helps and hindrances encountered by 
 Miss Dix in all her widespread and marvelously suc- 
 cessful legislative work ; 
 
 By March 14, 1845, the Act of Authorization was 
 taken up and read for the last time, and the proposi- 
 tion to postpone farther action till the next session of 
 the Legislature voted down in the Senate : ayes 2, nays 
 16. Upon the question, " Shall this bill now pass? " 
 ayes 18, nays none. March 20, certain amendments 
 were proposed by the House of Assembly, to which, 
 March 24, the Senate agreed. Then, March 25, the 
 reen grossed Bill passed : 18 ayes, nays none. The 
 victory was absolute ; the State had covered itself 
 with glory. Immediately, Hon. Joseph S. Dodd sent 
 in word to Miss Dix, anxiously yet confidently await- 
 ing intelligence in her room : 
 
 " SENATE CHAMBER, N. J. 
 
 " I am happy to announce to you the passage unanimously 
 of the bill for the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum." 
 
MY FIRST-BORN CHILD. 119 
 
 It was in her " mind's eye " alone that Miss Dix 
 could as yet see the full meaning of this vote. So far, 
 only "a castle in the air" was it at whose ideal 
 foundations and superstructure she had thus been 
 working. The stately buildings ; the ample and 
 beautiful grounds, with their grass-slopes, trees, flow- 
 ers, and sparkling fountains ; the quiet, home-like 
 wards ; the wise and tender care that were to take 
 home to their arms so many of the friendless and 
 wretched, all these benedictions, which were to 
 spring from the victory she had won, had as yet nei- 
 ther a " local habitation nor a name." But she was 
 one of those highly favored ones who believe without 
 seeing; nay, one of that exceptional class of conse- 
 crated workers for humanity who are permitted to 
 behold their most high-wrought "visionary" ideals 
 finally materialized before their eyes in a correspond- 
 ing real and actual. The day was drawing on when, 
 in twenty different States, she was to see with the bod- 
 ily eye such an outward and tangible witness of the 
 power of her own inner life as is rarely given to a 
 mortal to behold. " Verily, thou wast a mighty builder 
 before the Lord ! " is the exclamation involuntarily 
 wrung from the mind of any one who, following her 
 footsteps from State to State, enters, one after an- 
 other, the beautiful parks, and traverses the halls and 
 wards of the immense structures, she, with the Alad- 
 din's lamp of her own moral genius, summoned into 
 being. Very easy is it then to appreciate the enthu- 
 siasm with which her friend, Dr. S. G. Howe, wrote to 
 her from Boston, on July 15 of this year, 1845 : 
 
 " As for you, my friend, what shall I say to you to ex- 
 press my feelings respecting your course since I have seen 
 you personally ? Nothing, for words would fail me ; and, 
 
120 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 besides, you want not words of human praise. I look back 
 to the time when the whisperings of maiden delicacy made 
 you hesitate about obeying the stern voice of conscience. I 
 recollect what you were then, I think of your noble career 
 since, and I say, God grant me to look back upon some 
 three years of my life with a part of the self-approval you 
 must feel ! I ask no higher fortune. No one need say to 
 you, Go on ! for you have heard a higher than any human 
 voice, and you will follow whither it calleth. God give you 
 as much strength as you have courage, for your mission ! " 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " IN JOURNEYINGS OFTEN." 
 
 IN the letter of Dr. S. G. Howe, quoted at the con- 
 clusion of the last chapter, wondering allusion was 
 made by him to the range and multiplicity of Miss 
 Dix's labors during the previous three years. Of the 
 actual extent of these labors no due notice has as yet 
 been taken, as it seemed wiser for the time to concen- 
 trate attention wholly on her work in New Jersey, and 
 to emphasize it as an illustration of the methods she 
 habitually adopted. 
 
 In reality, only a portion of the years 1843-45 had 
 been spent by her in New Jersey, either while engaged 
 in collecting from county to county her statistics, or 
 while laboring with members of the Legislature. Of- 
 ten the Legislature was not in session, often it was 
 engaged on other business, often matters were in such 
 promising train that she could safely leave them in the 
 hands of able friends. 
 
 Meanwhile, she was at work with equal zeal in the 
 neighboring State of Pennsylvania, conducting at 
 Harrisburg, the capital, quite as arduous a campaign, 
 and one destined to prove as successful. Thus it hap- 
 pened that the date of the passage of a bill for found- 
 ing an entirely new State institution at Harrisburg, 
 Penn., corresponded very closely with the passage of 
 the Bill for the foundation of that at Trenton, N. J., 
 
122 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 two equally great trophies of humanity won in 
 a single year. Only constructively, therefore, as in 
 the parallel human case of the birth of twins into 
 the family, can the term " first-born child," the term 
 always so dear to the heart of its fostering mother, 
 be applied to the Trenton Asylum. Indeed, so rap- 
 idly did these asylum children now begin to follow 
 one another into existence all over the land as to 
 drive a bewildered biographer to the conviction that, 
 unless distinguishing marks in the way of red, green, 
 or blue ribbons shall be tied around their infant 
 wrists, hopeless confusion will erelong ensue as to na- 
 tal hours. 
 
 One capital sign of a mind capable of accomplishing 
 great results had now become evident in Miss Dix. 
 She knew when she had done enough in a given place 
 or at a given period, and was haunted with no misgiv- 
 ings that, unless her own hand were perpetually on the 
 wheel, in the immediate act of steering, the ship would 
 surely be run on to a reef. There was a time for her 
 to be taking her observations, working her reckoning, 
 studying her charts, and laying out the course of the 
 whole broad India voyage. No less a subject than the 
 immensity of the work called for by the condition of 
 the insane in a large majority of the States of the 
 Union, as well as in the British Dominion of Canada, 
 had now taken full possession of her. Accordingly, in 
 these actual two years in which she achieved her great 
 successes in New Jersey and in Pennsylvania, she is to 
 be found making long and arduous journeys all along 
 the wide stretch from Nova Scotia to New Orleans, and 
 mastering the conditions of the problem before her. 
 A letter or two, of widely differing dates, will serve to 
 bring before the mind the extent of these " circum- 
 
"IN JOURNEY1NGS OFTEN." 123 
 
 navigations of charity." The letters were written to 
 her friend, Miss Heath. 
 
 "LEXINGTON, KY., December 22, 1843. 
 
 " I left Boston in September, as you know ; visited en route 
 the prisons on Long Island and in the city of New York, 
 also those of New Jersey, and duly reached Philadelphia. 
 There and at Harrisburg I was detained a fortnight. Pro- 
 ceeding to Baltimore, I visited prisons there, and so on as 
 far as Pittsburg west. Thence to Cincinnati, where I ar- 
 rived the last of October. 
 
 The first of November I came to Kentucky, and have 
 been laboriously traveling through the counties, collecting 
 facts and information ever since, except a week which I 
 took in Tennessee. The Legislature being in session in 
 Nashville, I desired to do something for the state prison. 
 This effected, I crossed the country by a rapid journey to 
 Louisville, traveling by stage two days and nights. I pro- 
 ceed to-morrow to the northeast counties, if well enough. 
 I have engaged lodgings in Frankfort, Ky., for January 
 and February, and shall probably go to the Southern pris- 
 ons after the Legislature rises in this State." 
 
 " AT SEA. STEAMER CHARLESTON, FROM SAVANNAH TO 
 CHARLESTON, A STORM. LYING TO. March 31, 1845. 
 " A temporary quiet induces me to use the only writing 
 materials I have now at hand. ... I designed using the 
 spring and summer chiefly in examining the jails and 
 poorhouses of Indiana and Illinois. Having successfully 
 completed my mission in Kentucky, I learned that traveling 
 in the States referred to would be difficult, if not impossible, 
 for some weeks to come, on account of mud and rains. This 
 decided me to go down the Mississippi to examine the pris- 
 ons and hospitals of New Orleans, and, returning, to see the 
 state prisons of Louisiana at Baton Rouge, of Mississippi at 
 Jackson, of Arkansas at Little Rock, of Missouri at Jeffer- 
 son City, and of Illinois at Alton. ... I have seen incom- 
 
124 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 parably more to approve than to censure in New Orleans. 
 I took the resolution, being so far on the way, of seeing the 
 State institutions of Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. 
 Though this has proved excessively fatiguing, I rejoice that 
 I have carried out the purpose." 
 
 It is by a vigorous exercise of the imagination alone 
 that even a faint idea can be conceived of the differ- 
 ence between the fatigue and peril involved in jour- 
 neying such thousands of miles as far back as 1845, 
 and the speed, ease, and luxury with which the same 
 distances can be accomplished to-day. Comparatively 
 nothing then existed of the enormous network of rail- 
 ways which, at this date, enables the traveler to pene- 
 trate at will every nook and corner of the immense 
 area of the United States. Steamboats on the rivers, 
 and, by land, a few lines of coaches and the hire of 
 private conveyances, were then the main dependence. 
 The craziest of vehicles, the most deplorable roads, 
 and taverns whose regulation diet of corn bread and 
 " bacon and greens " would have undermined the di- 
 gestion of an ostrich, were, in the South and West, 
 the rule, and not the exception. 
 
 Those too, were the reckless racing times on the 
 Ohio, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Missouri rivers, the 
 exuberant days of the earlier national effervescence, 
 when, to fall back on the picturesque expressions of 
 the period, the moment a rival steamboat hove in 
 sight, the heaviest man on board was commissioned 
 to sit on the safety-valve, while the excited planters 
 flocked round the captain, eager to dedicate their last 
 ham on the freight-bills, or side of greasy bacon, to 
 feeding the fury of the rival furnace fires. Death by 
 explosion counted little against the glory of victory. 
 
 Safe escaped to land, however, discomfort or posi- 
 
"IN JOURNEYINGS OFTEN." 125 
 
 tive peril merely assumed a different shape. From 
 the setting in of the autumn rains to the heat and 
 dryness of the ensuing spring, the endless stretches of 
 the clay lands of the South and West became a conti- 
 nent of seemingly bottomless mud. Few bridges 
 spanned the creeks and rivers, which were passable 
 only at certain fords, often swollen by rains, and, by 
 the force of the current, rendered dangerous to the last 
 degree. Frequent inundations submerged the country 
 for miles back of the watercourses ; and where the 
 actual roads were not pure and unadulterated mud, 
 axle-deep and as tenacious as India-rubber, they were 
 largely a " corduroy " of logs, alternately rotted out, 
 over which the vehicle thumped and then bounded 
 into the air with a force which left every bone and 
 muscle bruised and sore. The drivers, as a rule, were 
 careless, happy-go-lucky negroes, or " poor whites " 
 fortified with whiskey enough to lift them into a realm 
 of serene unconsciousness of risks. Malarious fevers 
 were widely prevalent, and, in years of cholera or 
 other epidemics, the lack of medical skill and the gen- 
 eral recklessness in the habits of life insured their 
 rapid spread. 
 
 Now, the very nature of the work Miss Dix was thus 
 opening up involved that she, a lone and unprotected 
 woman, should penetrate every quarter where an alms- 
 house was to be inspected or an abuse ferreted out. 
 When not stopping over at any State capital during 
 a session of the legislature, she must keep herself in- 
 defatigably at her task of massing an amount of eye- 
 witness evidence, at once so exact that none could 
 gainsay it, and so moving in its appeal for redress 
 that the most hardened and selfish alone could resist 
 it. Of the large number of Memorials she was to 
 
126 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 write and bring before various legislatures, Memo- 
 rials, to the ability, eloquence, and judgment of which 
 no less a man than the celebrated Chancellor Kent 
 paid the highest tribute of praise, each had to be a 
 separate work, with its own local coloring. Kentucky 
 did not concern itself with the state of things in Ten- 
 nessee, nor Tennessee with that in Kentucky. The 
 States were sovereign. Thus, in the presence of each 
 new legislative David must she stand up with the 
 commanding authority of a fresh Nathan, to point the 
 finger and cry, " Thou art the man !" 
 
 Of course, the amount of labor, physical, mental, 
 and emotional, involved in conducting these cam- 
 paigns and no other word but "campaigns" can ade- 
 quately characterize them was enormous. And so, 
 the question of her habits, and manner of economizing 
 her forces becomes a highly interesting one, as always 
 in, the case of those who accomplish great results. 
 
 Miss Dix was one more illustration of the so com- 
 mon saying that " the work of the world is done by 
 its invalids." Like all such sayings, this especial one 
 has truth enough in it to make it worthy of serious 
 thought. Again and again in the world's history has 
 it turned out that it is the General Wolfe, consumed 
 with the hectic fever of the last stages of consumption, 
 who scales the Heights of Abraham and takes Que- 
 bec ; the Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, who, sentenced to 
 death by his physicians, but resolved to " die in har- 
 ness," goes farther than any of his day toward pene- 
 trating the ice barriers of the North Pole ; the Dar- 
 win, economizing his intervals of ten minutes' relief 
 from suffering, who leads the van of the naturalists of 
 Europe in solving the problem of the origin of species. 
 Nor is the reason a high endowment of ability once 
 
"IN JOURNEYINGS OFTEN." 127 
 
 allowed for so far to seek. It is as simple, in fact, 
 as the question why an engine of ten horse-power, 
 its piston-rod packed tight and its valves fitting with 
 precision, is capable of as much work as an engine 
 of twenty horse-power, its draught choked with soot 
 and its cylinders leaking steam at every joint. The 
 superb dower of physical life, nine tenths of which 
 a giant, like Daniel Webster, uses up in digesting 
 enormous dinners, washed down by copious draughts 
 of wine, and in the excessive amount of outdoor exer- 
 cise requisite to enabling him to accomplish the feat, 
 is found in the end to yield no more available work- 
 ing force than these careful invalids, consecrated to 
 arms, science, or humanity, manage to wrest from the 
 wreck of their lungs, nerves, or digestion. 
 
 This lesson of the wise economy of her strength 
 Miss Dix had now mastered, as far as it ever is mas- 
 tered by natures consumed by such passion of self-sac- 
 rifice. She suffered no social engagements to divert 
 her from her chosen object. Her business habits were 
 prompt and accurate, and no arrears of correspond- 
 ence were allowed to accumulate. Relief from over- 
 strain of sympathy, in such constant familiarity with 
 misery and degradation, she sought in an unfailing 
 delight in nature, in the keen interest she always kept 
 up in botanical study, as well as through that habitual 
 devout communion with God which was to her per- 
 petual invigoration and peace. 
 
 Thus, while her friends were in constant fear of her 
 succumbing in some lonely place, she always contrived 
 to go to the very verge of self-destruction, without 
 falling over the edge; illustrating in her own pe- 
 culiar way the words o St. Paul, "as dying, and 
 behold we live." Somewhere in her constitution there 
 
128 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 must have been a most tenacious fibre. Again and 
 again, in those days, was she attacked with hemor- 
 rhage, again and again prostrated with malarial fever. 
 Indeed, as her lifelong friend, Dr. Charles H. Nichols, 
 of the Bloomingdale Asylum of New York, said of 
 her, " her system became actually saturated with mala- 
 ria." And yet her brain never yielded. Throughout 
 her long life she never knew the meaning of a head- 
 ache. Meanwhile, she exercised a certain prudence of 
 her own. Whenever, in the midst of her most exact- 
 ing labors, she found herself in a position where the 
 force of flood or washout proved too much even for 
 her indomitable resolve to press forward, she would 
 take continuously to her bed, and store up sleep 
 enough sometimes thirteen to sixteen hours on a 
 stretch to tide her over the next two or three nights 
 of jolting in wretched vehicles over corduroy roads. 
 Indeed, these chance opportunities of indulging in 
 protracted sleep she seems always to have regarded in 
 the same light in which devout Roman Catholics look 
 upon the " superfluous merits of the saints," namely, 
 as a sacred storehouse on which to draw for the 
 benefit of the shortcomings of many an evil day and 
 night. 
 
 The excellent military practice of always carrying 
 along with each piece of artillery an extra wheel, to- 
 gether with a due store of subsidiary traces, linchpins, 
 rammers, and repairing tools, was, moreover, one 
 which as far as was possible in the case of a lone 
 woman, with a limited supply of hand-baggage Miss 
 Dix now sedulously adopted on all her journeys. 
 Southern roads were then well nigh as destructive to 
 wheels and harness as the average fire of an enemy's 
 battery in time of war. Many the occasion of wrench 
 
"IN JOURNEYINGS OFTEN." 129 
 
 or break befalling her wagon, on which she was forced 
 to dismount into deep mud and under a drenching 
 rain, only to find that her shiftless negro driver was 
 without the simplest means of repairing the damage. 
 Extra wheels and axles, indeed, it was beyond her 
 power to supply from her private stores, but, one or 
 two such experiences encountered and laid to heart, 
 she ever after made a practice of carrying with her an 
 outfit of hammer, wrench, nails, screws, a coil of rope, 
 and straps of stout leather, which under many a mis- 
 hap sufficed to put things to rights and enable her to 
 pursue her journey. 
 
 It could be wished that more incidents illustrative 
 of these ventures by flood and field had been preserved 
 for record. An invincible reticence on the part of 
 Miss Dix prevented her talking about herself, and she 
 was, moreover, too constantly worn out with her work 
 to have freshness enough left for picturesque narra- 
 tion. Her letters of this period to friends are largely 
 simple itineraries to acquaint them with her where- 
 abouts, and are written by snatches on steamboats 
 and trains, in stations and post offices, or while sitting 
 on a stump awaiting repairs on a broken carriage, with 
 tools furnished out of her own workshop. Here there 
 is a brief record, " Cholera on board ; " here a letter 
 headed "Stuck fast on a mud-bar ten miles below 
 Vicksburg ; " here another, " Up again from malarial 
 fever; off for Jackson, Miss., to-night." At times, 
 perhaps, she will condescend to enlarge more fully on 
 a river ford, a natural phenomenon for which, no 
 doubt on sufficient grounds of chills and fever, she 
 seems to have entertained an especial aversion, as in 
 the following extract : 
 
130 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 " I have encountered nothing so dangerous as river fords. 
 I crossed the Yadkin where it was three fourths of a mile 
 wide, rough bottom, often in places rapid currents ; the 
 water always up to the bed of the carriage, and sometimes 
 flowing in. The horses rested twice on sand-bars. A few 
 miles beyond the river, having just crossed a deep branch 
 two hundred yards wide, the axletree of the carriage broke, 
 and away rolled one of the back wheels." 
 
 One highly interesting incident, however, has been 
 preserved, which would no doubt serve as an example 
 of many another experience, not in all probability 
 alike in kind, but still quite as illustrative of her cou- 
 rageous character. The version of it here given first 
 appeared in print in the Greenville (S. C.) " Patriot," 
 and as it was sent, in slip, by Miss Dix to her bosom 
 friend, Miss Anne E. Heath, has thus her own indorse- 
 ment. The date of the occurrence was unquestionably 
 several years later than the period of her career we 
 are now engaged on, but, while describing the nature 
 of her lonely and exposed journeyings, this seems the 
 most appropriate place in which to introduce it : 
 
 "Ax INTERESTING INCIDENT. 
 
 " The other day, in conversation with Miss Dix, the phi- 
 lanthropist, during her visit to Greenville, a lady said to her, 
 ' Are you not afraid to travel all over the country alone, and 
 have you not encountered dangers and been in perilous 
 situations ? ' 
 
 " * I am naturally timid,' said Miss Dix, ' and diffident, 
 like all my sex ; but in order to carry out my purposes, I 
 know that it is necessary to make sacrifices and encounter 
 dangers. It is true, I have been, in my travels through 
 the different States, in perilous situations. I will mention 
 one which occurred in the State of Michigan. I had hired 
 a carriage and driver to convey me some distance through 
 
"IN JOURNEYINGS OFTEN." 131 
 
 an uninhabited portion of the country. In starting, I dis- 
 covered that the driver, a young lad, had a pair of pistols 
 with him. Inquiring what he was doing with arms, he said 
 he carried them to protect us, as he had heard that rob- 
 beries had been committed on our road. I said to him, 
 " Give me the pistols, I will take care of them." He 
 did so, reluctantly. 
 
 " ' In pursuing our journey through a dismal-looking forest, 
 a man rushed into the road, caught the horse by the bridle, 
 and demanded my purse. I said to him, with as much self- 
 possession as I could command, " Are you not ashamed to 
 rob a woman ? I have but little money, and that I want to 
 defray my expenses in visiting prisons and poorhouses, and 
 occasionally in giving to objects of charity. If you have 
 been unfortunate, are in distress and in want of money, I 
 will give you some." While thus speaking to him I discov- 
 ered his countenance changing, and he became deathly pale. 
 " My God," he exclaimed, " that voice ! " and immediately 
 told me that he had been in the Philadelphia penitentiary 
 and had heard me lecturing to some of the prisoners in an 
 adjoining cell, and that he now recognized my voice. He 
 then desired me to pass on, and expressed deep sorrow at 
 the outrage he had committed. But I drew out my purse, 
 and said to him, " I will give you something to support you 
 until you can get into honest employment." He declined, at 
 first, taking anything, until I insisted on his doing so, for 
 fear he might be tempted to rob some one else before he 
 could get into honest employment.' 
 
 " Had not Miss Dix taken posession of the pistols, in all 
 probability they would have been used by her driver, and 
 perhaps both of them murdered. That voice was more 
 powerful in subduing the heart of a robber than the sight of 
 a brace of pistols." 
 
 When it is recalled that, no farther back than 
 March, 1841, Miss Dix's friend, Kev. John T. G. 
 Nichols, had expressed serious fears of a person in 
 
132 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 such feeble health so much as taking charge of a Sun- 
 day-school class in the East Cambridge jail, the results 
 accomplished before the close of 1845 seem well-nigh 
 miraculous. In a letter to Mrs. Rathbone, of Liver- 
 pool, they were summed up by her in the following 
 words : 
 
 "I have traveled more than ten thousand miles in the 
 last three years. Have visited eighteen State penitentiaries, 
 three hundred county jails and houses of correction, more 
 than five hundred almshouses and other institutions, besides 
 hospitals and houses of refuge. I have been so happy as to 
 promote and secure the establishment of six 1 hospitals for 
 the insane, several county poorhouses, and several jails on a 
 reformed plan." 
 
 It seems only natural, then, that her happiness 
 should find such expression as in the following extract 
 from a letter, written on board a steamboat on the 
 Ohio River, to her friend, Mrs. Hare, of Philadel- 
 phia : 
 
 "I have had some of the most delightful evidences of 
 good accomplishing, and to be done, the past week. I am 
 very happy, and wonder, while such holy rewards reach me 
 
 1 The six insane asylums to which Miss Dix refers were the 
 Worcester, Mass., Asylum, greatly enlarged ; the Butler Asylum, in 
 Providence, R. L, practically refounded ; the Trenton and the Harris- 
 burg Asylums, her own outright creation ; the Utica, N. Y., Asylum, 
 doubled in size. 
 
 To these is to be added the name of another, outside the territory 
 of the United States, in Toronto, Canada West. As early as 1843, 
 she had memorialized the " Provincial Parliament of Canada East 
 and West Assembled," and had enlisted the energetic interest of the 
 governor and other leading authorities in her scheme. Sir Charles 
 Metcalfe wrote her that, but for her efforts and labors there, " Can- 
 ada West would still have long needed a hospital for the insane." Of 
 her work, also, in procuring the reformation of jails and almshouses, 
 Horace Mann said that it would make as wonderful a record as her 
 more especial work in behalf of the insane. 
 
"IN JOURNEYING^ OFTEN." 133 
 
 for effort and sacrifice, I should ever find myself faltering, 
 or sighing for the life of repose, which, in the distance, 
 seems to me so attractive." 
 
 And yet, as this narrative proceeds, it will be seen 
 that this was as yet but the " day of small things " 
 with her. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 
 
 " VENI, VIDI, VICI ! " 
 
 THE campaign, or rather series of campaigns, which, 
 for the next nine years, were to engage Miss Dix, 
 promised to call for all her resources. They involved 
 nothing less than carrying the legislatures of Indiana, 
 Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Mississippi, 
 Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina, 
 and Maryland, besides the establishment of two en- 
 tirely new asylums in the British Provinces, the one 
 at Halifax, Nova Scotia, the other at St. John, New- 
 foundland. Fortunately, there have been preserved 
 letters of various dates during those nine years, which 
 will help to illustrate the spirit and success of her 
 undertakings. 
 
 Nothing, it is said, tends to develop so swiftly in 
 reluctant minds a sense of personal responsibility as 
 boldly and suddenly thrusting responsibility on them. 
 Certainly, of this kind of tactics a striking instance is 
 given in the ensuing letter of Miss Dix to Mrs. Hare, 
 of Philadelphia : 
 
 " RALEIGH, N. C., November 27, 1848. 
 
 " They say, ' Nothing can be done here ! ' I reply, * I 
 know no such word in the vocabulary I adopt I ' It is de- 
 clared that no word will be uttered in opposition to my 
 claims, but that the Democrats, having banded as a party to 
 vote for nothing that involves expense, will unite and si- 
 lently vote down the bill. A motion was made to order 
 
"VENI, VWl y VICl!" 135 
 
 lighting the lamps in the portico of the Capitol, and voted 
 down by the Democrats. ' Ye love darkness because your 
 deeds are evil ! ' said a Whig, in great ire ; and a voice 
 from the gallery responded piously, 'For ye are of your 
 father, the Devil ! ' 
 
 " This morning after breakfast several gentlemen called, 
 all Whigs, talked of the hospital, and said the most discour- 
 aging things possible. I sent for the leading Democrats; 
 went to my room and brought my Memorial, written under 
 the exhaustion of ten weeks' most fatiguing journeys and 
 labors. ' Gentlemen,' I said, ' here is the document I have 
 prepared for your assembly. I desire you, sir, to present 
 it/ handing it to a Democrat popular with his party, ' and 
 you, gentlemen,' I said, turning to the astonished delega- 
 tion, * you, I expect, will sustain the motion this gentleman 
 will make to print the same.' 
 
 " They took leave, I do sincerely think, fully believing in 
 a failure, but I thought I could not have canvassed the 
 State for nothing. So the result proved. The Memorial 
 was presented ; the motion to print twelve extra copies for 
 each member was offered and passed without one dissenting 
 vote. These steps are, then, safely and successfully made. 
 The deep waters are yet to pass, but 
 
 ' My heart is fixed, and fixed my eye, 
 
 And I am girded for the race ; 
 The Lord is strong, and I rely 
 On his assisting grace.' " 
 
 Deep waters were there always to pass before bills, 
 demanding such large appropriations, present and 
 prospective, could be carried triumphantly through. 
 To persuade a party so bent on illustrating its ten- 
 der sympathy with its constituents' hatred of tax-bills 
 as to forbid so much as lighting the lamps in the por- 
 tico of the State Capitol, to persuade such a party 
 of the wisdom and mercy of the act of lighting, and 
 feeding forever after with costly oil, a lamp of sacri- 
 
136 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 fice which has ever since burned with such beneficent 
 ray as the Raleigh Insane Asylum, was no task to be 
 accomplished without a world of anxiety and toil. 
 Towards this great feat she was effectively helped by 
 the eloquent plea of Hon. James C. Dobbin, made, as 
 has already been stated, in response to the entreaty of 
 his dying wife that he would champion the cause of 
 the woman who had so tenderly cared for her. By 
 the close, therefore, of December, 1848, Miss Dix 
 could enthusiastically write to her friend, Mrs. Hare : 
 
 " Rejoice, rejoice with me ! Through toil, anxiety, and 
 tribulation, my bill has passed : 101 ayes, 10 nays. I am 
 not well, though perfectly happy. I leave North Carolina 
 compensated a thousand fold for all labors by this great 
 success." 
 
 The following autumn and winter of 1849 found 
 Miss Dix in Montgomery, Ala., arduously engaged 
 in trying to carry the State Legislature. There, after 
 a beginning made under the most favorable auspices, 
 a series of delays and disappointments set in, finally 
 brought to a climax by the conflagration of the State 
 Capitol. A panic in favor of retrenchment at once 
 ensued, and the year's work seemed lost. Sadly, but 
 courageously, she was forced to write to her friend, 
 Miss Heath : 
 
 " My affairs were in full tide of prosperous action, when 
 the disastrous conflagration of the State Capitol threw every- 
 thing into indescribable confusion. I have determined, as 
 an adjournment is had till New Year, to save time by going 
 at once to fulfill some objects at Selma, Mobile, New Or- 
 leans, and Jackson, Miss. I have recollected amidst these 
 perplexities that God requires no more to be accomplished 
 than He gives time for performing, and I turn now more 
 quietly to my work up the Hill Difficulty. The summit is 
 
"YEN I, VI DI, VI CI!" 137 
 
 cloud-capped, but I have passed amidst dark and rough 
 ways before, and shall not now give out." 
 
 By the opening of the new session, however, January 
 1, 1850, she was back again at her post in Montgomery. 
 Once again was the Hill Difficulty to prove insur- 
 mountable. The State was in no mood for increased 
 appropriations, and, though stanch friends stood by 
 her, the conflagration had given an impulse to the 
 cry for retrenchment which even her energy could not 
 make head against. In a weary hour she wrote her 
 friend, Mrs. Hare : 
 
 " I think, after this year, I shall certainly not suffer my- 
 self to engage in any legislative affairs for a year. I can 
 conceive the state of mind which this induces to be like 
 nothing save the influences of the gambling table, or any 
 games of chance, on such unlooked-for, and often trivial, 
 balances do the issues depend. There is just one chance in 
 a hundred that my bill will pass." 
 
 And yet, spite of her feeling of disappointment, 
 Miss Dix's faithful and untiring work had really car- 
 ried the day in Alabama. Not during the session of 
 1850 was her bill to triumph, but in that of 1851-52 
 it went successfully through. Touched with her de- 
 votion, the Alabama State Medical Association now 
 came to the rescue, appointing a special committee to 
 follow up the strong impressions already made, and 
 placing at the head of this committee Dr. Lopez, 
 a man after her own heart, who labored with such 
 earnestness through the ensuing session that an appro- 
 priation of 1100,000 was finally secured, and, after 
 this was exhausted, one of $150,000 more. 
 
 Scarcely a month, however, after the weary and 
 baffled letter in which Miss Dix had compared the 
 
138 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 anxieties and vicissitudes of legislative affairs with 
 the " influences of the gambling table," there came a 
 happy turn of the wheel of fortune through the course 
 of events in the neighboring State of Mississippi, 
 which called out the following rejoicing letter to Miss 
 Heath : 
 
 " Twenty-four majority in the Senate, and eighty-one in 
 the House, was something of a conquest over prejudice and 
 the positive declaration and determination not to give a 
 dime! Therefore, to give $50,000 and 3,000,000 brick, 
 besides the farm and foundations of the structure, is no 
 small matter. Great was my surprise at the really beauti- 
 ful vote of thanks, first by the legislature, then by the com- 
 missioners, and, finally, by the citizens. Legislature, com- 
 missioners, and citizens alike insisted on naming the hospital 
 after me." 
 
 This last tribute of honor to her name, however, 
 Miss Dix, on this as on so many other occasions, 
 positively refused. The Speaker, in reply, informed 
 her that, in deference to her views, the legislature had 
 agreed to suspend immediate action, but added that 
 "that was all Mississippians would concede on this 
 point to one who belonged to the country, and was 
 honored by all." 
 
 The letter, written from some unnamed point on 
 the Mississippi, from which the last extract is made, 
 contains likewise a picturesque sketch illustrative of 
 the peculiar exposures to which travelers on river 
 boats were in those days subjected. 
 
 "We have on our boat [she says] both cholera and 
 malignant scarlet fever. To add to our various incidents, a 
 quantity of gunpowder was left in charge of a raw Irish- 
 man, who was directed, at a given time and place, to load 
 the cannon and fire a salute. One hundred miles away 
 
" VENl, V1DL, V1C1!" 139 
 
 from the point to be so honored, Pat, thinking the bore of 
 the cannon as good a place of deposit for the powder as he 
 could find, rammed it down. Then discovering that the 
 rain had wet the bore, he ran with alacrity to the furnace 
 and returned with a burning stick, thrusting it in after the 
 powder, 'to dry up the wather.' This it effected; but not 
 this alone, for of course the powder exploded, and certain 
 portions of Pat's arm and hand were sent in advance toward 
 the distant city." 
 
 Who took care of poor Pat and dressed his wounds 
 the letter does not say. Ten to one, it was Miss Dix 
 herself. The last thing, with truth, that could have 
 been urged in her case was the so common reproach 
 brought against philanthropists, that, while full of 
 tenderness for humanity in the mass, they are indif- 
 ferent toward individuals ; or, as Dean Swift wittily 
 puts it, that, while loving the race, they do not care a 
 ha'penny for Tom, Dick, and Harry. Indeed, there 
 exists an amusing letter from her lifelong friend, 
 Dr. William G. Eliot, of St. Louis, in which he 
 comments on the unerring instinct with which, on 
 boarding a train or steamboat, she was sure, by a kind 
 of freemasonry, to detect any case of illness, poverty, 
 or bereavement, and before long to be found minister- 
 ing to it. The letter, though written at a later date, 
 and at the time when Dr. Eliot was himself engrossed 
 in completing the endowment of Washington Univer- 
 sity, St. Louis, that monument to his own persistency 
 and self -sacrifice, certainly lights up the subject in 
 hand by an individual contribution to New Testament 
 interpretation, not to be found in any of the standard 
 commentaries. 
 
 "I often think [he says] of your thoughtful care of 
 that forlorn woman in the cars. It was a rebuke to me. I 
 
140 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 can spend or be spent for an institution or for humanity ; 
 but if I had seen the ' certain man between Jerusalem and 
 Jericho,' I should have been the priest or Levite. Perhaps 
 they were at work for something on a large scale, and could 
 not see the small; or perhaps they had no relish for char- 
 ity in detail." 
 
 In fact, while on this especial subject, it may be 
 well enough to note here that so numerous were the 
 instances Miss Dix encountered on trains and steam- 
 boats, not merely of the sufferings, but of the follies 
 and perversities, of human beings, that, dignified and 
 reticent as was her habitual demeanor, she at times 
 would speak her mind with a freedom that created a 
 marked sensation. Once, for example, three young 
 ladies, dressed in the extreme of fashion, boarded the 
 train. It was at that especial epoch in the natural 
 history of woman which may be accurately enough 
 described as the " wasp-waist period ; " when, in hum- 
 ble imitation of that selected insect, to reduce to the 
 last degree of tenuity the slight film of connection 
 needful for self-preservation between the thoracic and 
 the abdominal regions of the human body seemed to 
 many young maidens the " chief end of man." The 
 fashion was one Miss Dix held in peculiar abhorrence, 
 her own studies in physiology having apparently in- 
 spired her with an intellectual respect so profound 
 for the functions of heart, lungs, liver, and digestive 
 organs that she could no more tolerate the thought of 
 their cruel imprisonment in the steel cage of a bind- 
 ing corset than that of the outraged insane in their 
 own cages. Now, it so happened that on a seat not 
 far from the part of the car in which the three fash- 
 ionably dressed young ladies had placed themselves 
 was a fourth young woman, whose ideas on the subject 
 
"VENI, VWI, V1CL!" 141 
 
 of the human waist evidently coincided more nearly 
 with the antiquated and exploded notions of the Venus 
 of Milo. She became at once an object of ridicule to 
 her more advanced sisters, who talked her over with 
 an unrestrained freedom which excited indignation 
 on all sides. " Better be dead than out of fashion ! " 
 finally exclaimed one of the three. Miss Dix could 
 endure their insolence no longer, and, suddenly rising, 
 interposed with her rich, impressive voice, " My dear, 
 if you lace as tight as you do now, you will not long 
 have the privilege of the choice. You will be both 
 dead and out of fashion." 
 
 To return, however, from this digression to the series 
 of campaigns Miss Dix was through those nine years 
 engaged with, principally in the Southern and Middle 
 States of the Union. 
 
 It had become her habit to work from the late 
 autumn till advancing spring in the South, and, when 
 the heat grew too overpowering, to transfer her field 
 of activity to more northern regions. As far to the 
 northeast as Halifax, Nova Scotia, and St. John, New- 
 foundland, do we, accordingly, in these times find her. 
 In Halifax especially is she now, year by year, bend- 
 ing all her energies toward the foundation of a cruelly 
 needed asylum. While zealously seconded in her ef- 
 forts by the Bishop of Nova Scotia, it was, however, 
 to the untiring courage and devotion of Hon. Hugh 
 Bell that final success was chiefly due. 
 
 Among the correspondence left behind at the death 
 of Miss Dix, the letters of this humble-minded but, in 
 every fibre, noble man afford a beautiful picture of 
 a true friendship in the spirit. Of great practical 
 ability, and thoroughly versed in political matters, a 
 tendency, none the less, to despondency was a marked 
 
142 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 characteristic of the man, and to Miss Dix, and the 
 sacred work she had put into his hands, he felt he 
 owed a happier trust in God and faith in human 
 nature. His moral admiration for her was unbounded. 
 Again and again he attests how her inspiration had 
 made life worth living to him, through lifting it to a 
 disinterested aim. She, he said, was " Minerva," he 
 " Telemachus." As, therefore, one sure test of the 
 vitality of any mind is its power to raise up a host of 
 co-workers, infused with its own faith and will, it is 
 here to the point to present a few extracts from these 
 letters of Hon. Hugh Bell. Only through the medium 
 of such living records can any fit idea be gained 
 alike of the discouragements attendant on such work 
 as Miss Dix was engaged on, in communities as yet 
 insensible to its real import, and of the nature of the 
 happy spiritual relations established between lofty 
 minds made one by a common humane aim. 
 
 " HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, April 3, 1850. 
 
 " I am sorry to have to inform you that the result of 
 your efforts, and of our high expectations of the action of 
 our Legislature, has ended in a mere compliment to you. 
 However just and however sincere, the ' one thing need- 
 ful ' would, I am sure, have been much more satisfactory to 
 you. ... I fear that even the thunders of Demosthenes 
 would scarce disturb our apathy and insensibility respecting 
 such subjects." 
 
 " HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, August 10, 1850. 
 
 " As to the final accomplishment of our object, although 
 I must approve of the purpose never to abandon a post 
 undertaken in a good cause, I am almost like the Quaker 
 who said to his traveling companion, when in circumstances 
 of danger, ' I must go by thy faith, for mine is gone ! ' If 
 there be a final triumph, I shall, if I live, rejoice to join in 
 the song of victory, and to aid in weaving the chaplet around 
 
"VENI, VIDI, VICI!" 143 
 
 your brows. Ridiculous as this may sound now, who can 
 tell what may yet be done ! ' Impossible ! ' seems to be 
 now an obsolete term. We live in an age of wonders." 
 
 " HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, July 5, 1853. 
 
 " I thank you, my noble-minded and generous friend, for 
 your kind, encouraging letter. Your vigorous, unwavering 
 faith and your firm^ unflinching resolution shame away 
 doubt and inspire confidence. With you by my side (like 
 Minerva, in the shape of Mentor, by the side of Telema- 
 chus), even I would become courageous. We shall con- 
 quer yet! Do you not inwardly chuckle as I say we? 
 It is something like the bellows-blower's and the organist's 
 ' Did n't we do well ? ' Never mind ! if the well only 
 comes. No matter about the ' we ' ! " 
 
 " HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, August 4, 1853. 
 " I called on the Admiral or rather at the Admiralty 
 House to leave my card for the Earl of Ellsmore (as in 
 duty bound). The old Admiral met me at the door very 
 cordially, shook hands, and then said, * Where is Miss 
 Dix ? ' I replied, ' She left for home yesterday. She has 
 been to Sable Island and back ! ' He exclaimed in true 
 sailor style, * She 's a gallant woman ! ' ' 
 
 " HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, , 1853. 
 
 " The session of our Legislature closed yesterday, and I 
 hasten to inform you that something has been done for the 
 object of our long and earnest effort : 15,000, equal to 
 $60,000, has been appropriated, with the condition that 
 5,000 more be subscribed. . . . They have made me, 
 officially, the acting and chief commissioner. How strangely 
 and unexpectedly are things brought about! ... I am 
 bound in gratitude to be thankful that Providence has 
 blessed my humble efforts in behalf of our afflicted fel- 
 low beings, but I feel myself so totally inadequate as to 
 knowledge of the right and best way of proceeding that I 
 
144 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 shrink from it, and wish it were in abler hands. You see 
 how much I need your aid. May I expect to have it ? I 
 cannot but think how much stronger your faith was than 
 mine. You always said it would be done. I confess that 
 I had given up hope, during my life." 
 
 A few instances like these will suffice in the attempt 
 to record the series of moral successes achieved by 
 Miss Dix during these nine memorable years. Tedi- 
 ous to the reader would it be to enlarge on them sep- 
 arately. Suffice it to say, that each succeeding year 
 witnessed the original foundation of one or more State 
 asylums, and was marked by public votes of thanks 
 from fresh legislatures, and by letters of congratula- 
 tion of the tenor of that in which Dr. E. S. Steuart, 
 of Baltimore, wrote her, after the passage of her bill 
 in Maryland : " Most cordially do I congratulate you 
 on your success, because I am well convinced that no 
 other means than yours could have produced this re- 
 sult. I am glad you have one more leaf added to the 
 chaplet that so honorably adorns your brow." 
 
 Of a like tenor letters by the score, from gov- 
 ernors, members of legislatures, and associations of 
 physicians, were now continually pouring in upon her 
 from all quarters of the Union. " We can do nothing 
 without you ! " was the universal cry. Her vitalized 
 personality withdrawn, every movement languished ; 
 while, as soon as she was again upon the spot, the 
 stragglers hurried back, the ranks closed up, the lead- 
 ers headed the columns, and victory ensued. Confi- 
 dently may it be asserted that on no other page of the 
 annals of purely merciful reform can be read such a 
 series of moral triumphs over apathy, ignorance, and 
 cruel neglect as were in that space of time won by 
 Miss Dix. Besides the memorable list of previous 
 
"VENI, VIDI, VICI1" 145 
 
 successes, there might now have been emblazoned on 
 her battle flag of humanity the names of Lexington, 
 Kentucky ; Hopkinsville, Kentucky ; Indianapolis, In- 
 diana ; Jacksonville, Illinois ; Fulton, Missouri ; Nash- 
 ville, Tennessee ; Jackson, Louisiana ; Raleigh, North 
 Carolina ; Jackson, Mississippi ; Tuscaloosa, Alabama ; 
 Baltimore, Maryland; Washington, District of Co- 
 lumbia ; Halifax, Nova Scotia. It is easy to repeat 
 these names, harder to make each one of them sum- 
 mon before the mind's eye the buildings, farms, pleas- 
 ure-grounds, skilled and humane supervision of a great 
 institution, taking into its protecting arms of mercy 
 such numbers of the most wretched and abandoned of 
 earth's creatures. Still, even in the case of the most 
 sluggish imagination, it cannot be difficult to rise in 
 partial sympathy, at least, with the enthusiasm with 
 which, on the occasion of still another success in South 
 Carolina, that profound and noble-minded scholar, 
 Dr. Francis Lieber, wrote to Miss Dix from Colum- 
 bia, S. C. : 
 
 TE DEUM LAUDAMUS! 
 
 " How do you feel ? Like a general after a victory ? Oh, 
 no ! much better. Like people after a shipwreck ? You 
 are saving thousands, and not by one act, but by planting 
 institutions, and institutions of love. And when man does 
 that, he comes nearest to his God of love and mercy. 
 
 " Deus tibi lux ! F. L." 
 
 Indeed, at this period, Miss Dix herself looked with 
 a not unnatural wonder, mingled with devout humility, 
 on the unexampled success of her career. She rarely 
 spoke of her own achievements ; but in a letter of 
 June, 1850, to her friend, Mrs. Rathbone, of Liverpool, 
 England, there occur a few sentences which lift the 
 
146 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 veil of her habitual reserve and admit one within the 
 sanctuary of her inmost feeling : 
 
 " Shall I not say to you, dear friend, that my uniform 
 success and influence are evidence to my mind that I am 
 called by Providence to the vocation to which life, talents, 
 and fortune have been surrendered these many years ? I 
 cannot say, * Behold, now, this great Babylon which I have 
 builded ! ' but * Lo ! O Lord, the work which Thou gavest 
 thy servant ; she does it, and God in his benignity blesses and 
 advances the cause by the instrument He has fitted for the 
 labor.' " 
 
 After the record of such a series of achievements, 
 and before farther proceeding with the story of the 
 still more remarkable triumphs which awaited the sub- 
 ject of this biography in the future, it seems natural to 
 pause here a moment, to try in some way to grasp the 
 secret of her power. 
 
 Notwithstanding all her virile forces of intellect and 
 will, the ideas entertained by Miss Dix on the subject 
 of woman's work or woman's sphere of influence in the 
 world were at this period, and indeed remained to the 
 end of her life, of a character that would in these days 
 be regarded by many superior women as decidedly 
 conservative and of the old school. And yet in them 
 lay the hidingplace of the peculiar power she exerted 
 in the Southern and Southwestern States, then ruled 
 by an ideal of womanhood which had in it many ele- 
 ments handed down from the days of chivalry. 
 
 Distinctly and emphatically, Miss Dix believed in 
 woman's keeping herself aloof and apart from any- 
 thing savoring of ordinary political action, as equally 
 from every desire of material reward, whether in the 
 way of money, place, or personal distinction. She 
 must be the incarnation of a purely disinterested idea 
 
"VExr, vwi, vicf!" 147 
 
 appealing to universal humanity, irrespective of party 
 or sect ; at once a voice of tender supplication for the 
 outcasts of the earth and their impassioned champion, 
 capable of flaming with sacred fire. From large num- 
 bers of the politicians with whom she was necessarily 
 brought into close contact, carefully as she hid the 
 feeling from them, she yet shrank with a distinct 
 moral repulsion. " They are," she declared, " the 
 meanest and lowest party demagogues, shocking to 
 say, the basest characters." 
 
 By nature, she herself was, as one of her truest and 
 most admiring friends said of her, " aristocratic in 
 every fibre ; " that is, in the original and more literal 
 signification of the word as emphasizing faith in the 
 divine hierarchy of intellect, heart, and conscience. 
 Instinctively she craved and enjoyed intercourse with 
 the finer and higher types of humanity, and drew back 
 in sensitive aversion from every shape of ugliness, vul- 
 garity, and self-seeking. " Anthophila," the flower- 
 lover, was the Greek name with which, in those days, 
 the eminent publicist, Dr. Francis Lieber, usually ad- 
 dressed her ; and the name held true not merely of 
 her love of flowers, but of everything characterized 
 by social grace and refinement, by intellectual dis- 
 tinction, or by beauty of manners, spirit, and charac- 
 ter. This side of her nature she had literally to cru- 
 cify in a great part of her work. A Christlike sense 
 of compassion for human misery and of fiery indigna- 
 tion at the infliction of pain ; an intense intellectual 
 revolt from the brute irrational chaos of society which, 
 under the light that had now broken, permitted such 
 evils longer to exist, these, together with a daily 
 yearning supplication, " Thy kingdom come, thy will 
 be done on the earth as it is done in heaven," were 
 
148 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 the only powers that nerved her to tolerate perpetual 
 contact with degraded forms of misery, and with a 
 class of public characters, many of whom were offen- 
 sive to her through and through. 
 
 The natural result of this position, early adopted 
 and inflexibly adhered to by Miss Dix, was that, es- 
 pecially among the ardent and impulsive peoples of 
 the Southern and Southwestern States, she gradually 
 came to be regarded as a being apart from ordinary 
 humanity. Very striking is it to turn over old files 
 of Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and other Southern 
 newspapers, and read the glowing language in which 
 they speak of the arrival within their borders of that 
 " gracious lady," that " crown of human nature," that 
 " chosen daughter of the Kepublic," that " angel of 
 mercy." 
 
 On issues aside from her own self -consuming pas- 
 sion she was careful to antagonize no one. Even on 
 the " slavery question," then becoming ever more 
 hotly agitated, and awakening the fiercest hatred 
 against all who belonged to the North, she persistently 
 held her peace. What her view and action on the 
 subject would have been, had she been left to the 
 natural impulses of her own merciful heart, may be 
 readily enough inferred. But she entered the South 
 under bonds to keep the peace, bonds not personal 
 and selfish, but disinterested and sympathetic. One 
 word from her lips in the way of the mildest reproval, 
 even, and every State south of the Susquehanna would 
 have been sealed to her. Her word would have ef- 
 fected nothing ; but it would have left thousands of 
 forlorn wretches to languish, without a champion, in 
 cells and chains, in filth and misery. No, she felt she 
 had her own God-appointed work, so vast and far- 
 reaching in its consequences that her feeble hands 
 
VENl, VTDI, V1CI!" 149 
 
 could but grasp its outermost skirts. In a very literal 
 sense poor Simmons's God had become passionately 
 identified with her own God, and " the prayers of 
 agony shrieked from his dreary abode " now filled her 
 ears till she could hear no other cry. 
 
 A letter of Dr. Francis Lieber, written as far back 
 as November 5. 1846, from Columbia, S. C., gives ex- 
 pression to his own sense of the unique, moral, and 
 imaginative position occupied by Miss Dix in the work 
 to which she had consecrated her life. 
 
 "You as a woman [he said] have a great advantage 
 over us, for with the firmness, courage, and strength of a 
 male mind you unite the advantage of a woman. Savarin, 
 at the head of the French police, told Napoleon, with ref- 
 erence to Mad. de Cayler, that he could not master the 
 women. This was in a bad cause ; but the same holds good 
 in a good. You do not excite the same opposition ; no one 
 can suspect you of ambitious party views, and you can dare 
 more because people do not dare to refuse you many a 
 thing they would not feel ashamed of refusing to any one 
 of our sex. Therefore take care of yourself ! " 
 
 How strong, indeed, was the impression at this 
 period exerted by her personality on a mind of the 
 range of Dr. Lieber's, is manifest in the language 
 of one of his own letters to George S. Hillard, of 
 Boston : 
 
 " Miss Dix has been with us again, and leaves us to- 
 morrow. . . . She is greatly exhausted, and I always fear 
 to hear that she has succumbed somewhere in a lonely 
 place. What a heroine she is ! May God protect her ! 
 Over the whole breadth and length of the land are her foot- 
 steps, and where she steps flowers of the richest odor of 
 humanity are sprouting and blooming as on an angel's 
 path. I have the highest veneration for her heart and will 
 and head." 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE BURDEN GROWING HEAVIER. 
 
 AMONG the inevitable burdens now precipitated on 
 the shoulders of a woman as frail in body as Miss 
 Dix, no slight additional an one grew out of the fact 
 that so great was the confidence reposed in her prac- 
 tical ability that again and again, after having, at a 
 great tax on her strength, carried a bill through a 
 legislature, she was farther urged to shoulder the re- 
 sponsibility of selecting a fit site for the projected asy- 
 lum, and of deciding on the character of the buildings 
 to be erected. It was a task she was unwilling to 
 decline, for, in the wide-spread ignorance prevailing 
 in those days, she clearly saw how easily the successful 
 working of a hospital might be made or marred by the 
 nature of its location or its plan of construction. 
 
 In fact, a hundred questions had to be raised and 
 wisely answered. Was the soil wet or dry, was it 
 adapted to furnish the patients with fit outdoor work, 
 was there an abundant supply of pure water, was 
 there due variety of sunshine and shade, was the loca- 
 tion easily accessible by rail or water for the delivery 
 of fuel and provisions , finally, were the surroundings 
 attractive and the scenery of a character to " minis- 
 ter," through its charm, " to a mind diseased " ? All 
 these were problems demanding careful observation, and 
 to the end of wisely solving them Miss Dix kept herself 
 in constant touch with the class of exceptionally able 
 
THE BURDEN GROWING HEAVIER. 151 
 
 experts who, as superintendents, were now steadily 
 evolving the plans which for a period of many years 
 were to make the American insane asylums the model 
 asylums of the civilized world. 
 
 As early as at the date, in 1845, of her success in 
 securing the foundation of a hospital at Harrisburg, 
 Penn., Mr. James Lesley had written her : 
 
 " You may rest assured that to Mr. Trego, as to all the 
 other commissioners, your wishes on the subject of site and 
 buildings will be law. He declared that no man nor woman 
 other than yourself, from Maine to Louisiana, could have 
 passed the bill under the discouraging circumstances with 
 which you had to contend." 
 
 Of the delight, indeed, she at first took in the ad- 
 ditional labor thus imposed on her she writes in a 
 spirit of fairly girlish exuberance to her friend, Miss 
 Heath : - 
 
 " My farm is much liked, and it would not be surpris- 
 ing if I should throw up a tabernacle inwoven with green 
 branches, and count the bricks as they are placed one upon 
 another till the fabric be complete." 
 
 To the dew and freshness of the early morning, 
 however, there inevitably succeeds the heat and bur- 
 den of the day, and this contrasting experience Miss 
 Dix was destined to encounter in many trying ways as 
 time wore on. A site once judiciously chosen for the 
 real end in view, then too often began the worst tug 
 of war. 
 
 As a rule, real-estate transactions react hardly more 
 felicitously in bringing out the higher attributes of 
 human nature than, as is traditionally asserted, does 
 the trading of horses. Miss Dix naturally wanted 
 the best procurable site for the benefit of the patients ; 
 
152 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 the owner of the site wanted the best procurable 
 price for his own benefit. Miss Dix did her best to 
 ignore all local questions of the town or county that 
 was to be pecuniarily helped by the establishment of 
 an asylum within its borders ; the town or county, 
 on the contrary, did its best to have this made the 
 first consideration. Nor was this all. Rich proprie- 
 tors of country-seats, with stronger prejudices against 
 " madhouses " than even against pauper burial-fields, 
 banded together with all the power of wealth and in- 
 fluence to keep every such institution out of their 
 neighborhoods. Thus continually was she brought 
 into sharp collision with some of the most distasteful 
 features of human nature. 
 
 In the State of Maryland, for example, she, on this 
 last especial score, found herself subjected to very 
 rude and offensive treatment at the hands of certain 
 wealthy land-owners. So high, however, was the re- 
 spect in which she was held, and so dignified, even 
 while immovable as a rock, was her demeanor, that 
 here,*,s elsewhere, a reaction set in, when it was seen 
 how disinterestedly she stood for the cause of mercy, 
 while her opponents stood solely for considerations of 
 personal selfishness. Thus from Annapolis, Md., her 
 stanch friend, Hon. Thomas Donaldson, was soon able 
 to write her : 
 
 " There is a soul of goodness in things evil, and you have 
 reason to thank the malice of your opponents for the sub- 
 stantial aid which they give to the cause you advocate. 
 
 The attack of , coining from a masked battery too, has 
 
 raised you up friends that before were opponents, and has 
 added the impulse of indignation to the cool convictions of 
 your friends. The hospital never was so strong in the 
 Legislature of Maryland. The letter of Teackle Wallis, 
 
THE BURDEN GROWING HEAVIER. 153 
 
 printed in the Appendix of the Report, is really admirable, 
 and it tells with great effect here. Every sentence cuts as 
 cleverly and as cleanly as the Saladin's sword." 
 
 At times, none the less, there grew out of these self- 
 ish and sordid complications incidents so honorable 
 to human nature, and so strikingly illustrative of the 
 persuasive moral eloquence of the subject of this biog- 
 raphy, that it is a delight to record them. Such a 
 one is the following. 
 
 No one who has ever visited the Hospital for the 
 Insane of the Army and Navy, at Washington, D. C., 
 could have set foot within its grounds without exclaim- 
 ing, " This is the ideal site for an asylum ! " Situated 
 at the junction of two broad and noble rivers, the Po- 
 tomac and the East Branch ; commanding a superb 
 view by land and water ; gently sloping on all sides 
 from its highest elevation so as to secure perfect drain- 
 age ; and embracing within its bounds the most varied 
 charm of wood and pasture, it seems to unite every 
 conceivable advantage. Now, at the date of the pas- 
 sage by Congress, in 1852, of an appropriatfon for 
 founding an asylum for the insane of the army and 
 navy, this beautiful domain was the private property 
 of Mr. Thomas Blagden, and, in carefully examining 
 the whole country surrounding Washington, Dr. John 
 H. Nichols, who had labored indefatigably toward the 
 passage of the bill, had made up his mind that there 
 was no other site at all comparable with it. Mr. 
 Blagden, however, turned a deaf ear to every proposi- 
 tion on the part of Dr. Nichols to buy it; The estate 
 had become endeared to him through the exceptional 
 beauty of its situation, and was, moreover, the espe- 
 cial pride of his wife and daughters. Besides, the full 
 amount appropriated by Congress for the purchase of 
 
154 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 a site was but 125,000, and on no consideration, Mr. 
 Blagden insisted, would he part with the property at 
 less than $40,000. 
 
 One day, after having exhausted every personal ef- 
 fort, and thoroughly depressed in spirits, Dr. Nichols 
 went in to see Miss Dix. " There is nothing more to 
 be done ! " he exclaimed ; " we shall have to give the 
 matter up ; and it is the finest site for a hospital in 
 the world ! " 
 
 Miss Dix listened without excitement, and then re- 
 plied, in her usual quiet tone, "We must try what 
 can be done ! " Seeking a personal interview with 
 Mr. Blagden, so earnestly and movingly did she 
 reason with him to surrender for the future good of 
 thousands of his suffering fellow-creatures what was 
 so precious, indeed, to him and his family, but to one 
 household only, that the appeal proved irresistible, and 
 he gave her his promise of the estate at the amount 
 appropriated by Congress. None the less the parting 
 with it cost him a fearful wrench ; for on Dr. Nichols's 
 calling' on him, the next day, with the requisite papers 
 to sign, Mr. Blagden was found walking the room to 
 and fro, weeping and wringing his hands in a half- 
 hysteric condition. " I don't want to part with it ! " 
 he kept reiterating. " It is dear to me and dear to 
 my family ! But I won't break my word to Miss Dix, 
 I won't break my word ! I told her she should 
 have it, and she shall have it ! " 
 
 Such scenes as this do honor to human nature. In- 
 deed, it would be hard to instance a more beautiful 
 tribute to the power of consecrated womanhood than 
 is embodied in the following letter, so simple, hushed, 
 and awestruck in its tone, sent to Miss Dix by Mr. 
 Blagden, the evening of the day on which she had 
 
THE BURDEN GROWING HEAVIER. 155 
 
 thus closed in, in Jacob's angel wrestle, with his deep- 
 est nature. 
 
 " WASHINGTON, November, 13, 1852. 
 
 " DEAR MADAM, Since seeing you to-day, I have had 
 no other opinion (and Mrs. B. also) than that I must not 
 stand between you and the beloved farm, regarding you, as 
 I do, as the instrument in the hands of God to secure this 
 very spot for the unfortunates whose best earthly friend you 
 are, and believing sincerely that the Almighty's blessing 
 will not rest on, nor abide with, those who may place obsta- 
 cles in your way. 
 
 " With Mrs. Blagden's and my own most friendly re- 
 gards, 
 
 " Very respectfully, 
 
 " Your obedient servant, 
 
 THOMAS BLAGDEN." 
 
 Onerous and exacting as were the responsibilities 
 thus imposed on Miss Dix through the appeals now 
 constantly made to her by officials of the many States 
 in which she had secured appropriations for asylums, 
 to assume the further task of advising with the com- 
 missioners on all matters of selection of sites and 
 plans of construction, still, even these grave burdens 
 were, perhaps, exceeded in weight by another class 
 of duties soon inevitably thrust upon her. 
 
 What had she really been bringing about through 
 this series of unexampled legislative successes ? No- 
 thing less than the actual creation within the United 
 States of the conditions for the foundation and devel- 
 opment of a great school of trained experts in the 
 treatment of insanity. Before those ten or twelve 
 years of rapid, Napoleonic victories, there had existed 
 except in a few scattered places neither the call 
 nor the opportunity for practically enlisting and de- 
 
156 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 ploying this especial order of medical talent. Now 
 fast grew up a wide demand for it, a great school of 
 practice in which to acquire and exercise the requisite 
 knowledge and skill. The attention of large numbers 
 of able medical minds was thus turned in a new direc- 
 tion and solicited to a new field. 
 
 Who should be superintendents, assistant physi- 
 cians, stewards, attendants, and nurses in all these 
 fast-springing-up asylums? On wise and judicious 
 appointments hung the whole success of the new un- 
 dertaking. What more natural, then, than that in 
 these as yet inexperienced States governors and legis- 
 lators should turn for counsel to the woman whose 
 commanding moral genius had summoned into being 
 so many new institutions? Steadily the amount of 
 patronage placed in her hands grew in volume ; and 
 here her remarkable judgment of character and ca- 
 pacity revealed itself in its full strength. It is the 
 responsible privilege of a biographer to go through an 
 immense mass of papers, the contents of which are of 
 too private a character to be made known to the pub- 
 lic. Perfectly allowable, however, is it to say here 
 that a list so large could be drawn up of men, later 
 on achieving a national reputation as authorities on 
 insanity, who, in these and subsequent years, owed 
 their appointments solely to the recommendation of 
 Miss Dix, that the number and character of the names 
 on it would awaken wide-spread surprise. 
 
 Very rich was life now becoming to Miss Dix in hu- 
 man relationships .which in a measure relieved the 
 strain put upon her by the more arduous and painful 
 side of her work. Her range of acquaintance with 
 the best men and women in all parts of the land had 
 grown to be immense, and, homeless herself, she was 
 
THE BURDEN GROWING HEAVIER, 157 
 
 everywhere welcomed under their roofs. She had 
 filled life with new zest to many, who but fox* her lead- 
 ership would have found no avenue of usefulness open 
 to them ; and as the nature of her work involved 
 the enlistment of the largest possible number of co- 
 workers, to help add attraction to the at first bare and 
 unhomelike asylum wards, she suffered no chance to 
 pass of stimulating them to contributions of all kinds. 
 Even on the children of the various homes she vis- 
 ited, she never failed to impress the idea of how much 
 they could do in aid of the blessed cause. Old toys, 
 puzzles, musical boxes, nodding Chinese mandarins, 
 collections of minerals, seaweeds, pressed flowers, but- 
 terflies, eggs, birdsnests, nothing, she showed them, 
 would come amiss in the way of amusing poor de- 
 mented patients, and turning their minds away from 
 their melancholy broodings. Numberless the prized 
 collections that under the spell of her persuasive elo- 
 quence were thus surrendered by little boys and girls ; 
 as, equally numberless, the juvenile tears that were 
 shed, after the spell of that eloquence was withdrawn 
 and the instincts of the sweetness of private owner- 
 ship revived in their little breasts. Amusing stories 
 are to this day told, by persons now well advanced in 
 years, of the miserly eagerness with which, as boys and 
 girls, they secreted days ahead their precious treasures, 
 on the alarming news being revealed to them that Miss 
 Dix was expected in the house. Indeed, it may be 
 seriously questioned whether sometimes a deep-rooted 
 repugnance to charity and all its works was not thus 
 lodged in certain of their minds through demands for 
 a pitch of self-sacrifice beyond the immaturity of view 
 as to the sacred claims of insanity usually prevalent at 
 the age of six or eight. 
 
158 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 A simple impossibility was it that a character of 
 the steady intensity and force of will, which alone 
 rendered possible such a career as that of Miss Dix, 
 should not at times have inspired a certain sense of 
 awe. The pace at which great souls go takes away 
 the breath of average mortals, and they cry out at the 
 strain that is put on their feebler powers. And yet, 
 in the way of illustration of how completely closer 
 intercourse with her served to dispel this fear, the 
 following letter from Mrs. Louisa J. Hall, widow of 
 the late Kev. Edward B. Hall, D. D., of Providence, 
 R. L, gives a charming picture. The letter was 
 written in answer to a request for any recollections 
 she might feel inclined to furnish of the far-away days 
 when she was brought into personal contact with Miss 
 Dix: 
 
 " CAMBRIDGE, MASS., May 17, 1889. 
 
 u I think it was in 1844 that my husband came to me in 
 the nursery, and said Miss Dix was below. I declined go- 
 ing down, thinking she had merely called to consult him. 
 * No, she had come to stay all night, and would like to see 
 me in the nursery ! ' I thought it an unceremonious pro- 
 ceeding, did not like a woman that went about a ' self-ap- 
 pointed critic,' had heard that she was ' cross ' when she 
 kept school, and I was a prejudiced woman, shame to me ! 
 She made her appearance, and one look at that calm, 
 gentle face had its effect. Then only a word of ladylike 
 apology in a sweet, low voice, and I began to feel the gift 
 she had. 
 
 "I was mending my boys' socks, and she quietly.took up 
 one and began darning with a skillful hand, talking most 
 pleasantly of the beautiful city of Providence, and of some 
 Boston minister we both knew. For two hours we sat to- 
 gether, and not one word about the insane or her ' mission,' 
 when I had anticipated that she would talk of nothing else. 
 
THE BURDEN GROWING HEAVIER. 159 
 
 This foolish, obstinate conservative was conquered by the 
 force of that beautiful, strong nature, shining through a 
 genuine womanhood. After dinner, she said to my hus- 
 band, * Now I am at your service,' and he immediately took 
 her to see some persons interested in her work. She stayed 
 some days with us, never introducing the subject, but ready 
 to give information, and tell us of facts that made us bless 
 the day she was born, and the day when she found what 
 work the Lord had for her. 
 
 " As I am a thorough woman, you must let me speak of 
 her dress. She traveled all over the country with a moder- 
 ate valise in her hand, and wearing a plain gray traveling 
 dress with snow-white collar and cuffs. Her trunk was 
 sent a week ahead with the necessary changes of linen, etc., 
 and one plain black silk dress for special occasions. Neat- 
 ness in everything indicated her well-directed mind. And 
 my acquaintance with her helped me on the upward way 
 from extreme conservatism." 
 
 These opposing sides of the impression made 'on 
 others by Miss Dix the impression on the one hand 
 of a certain rigid inflexibility, a certain self-with- 
 drawn and awe-inspiring element in her nature, and, 
 on the other, of a winning sweetness when the foun- 
 tains of feeling were broken up from within were in- 
 evitably felt by all who came in contact with her, and 
 were never to the end of life thoroughly harmonized 
 in her nature. Sometimes the one, sometimes the 
 other, stood out separate ; on other occasions they 
 were fused in a strong and gracious unity. Her moral 
 will aroused and at the forefront, she was adamant. 
 " To have Miss Dix suddenly arrive at your asylum," 
 said the eminent Dr. Isaac Ray, of Providence, " and 
 find anything neglected or amiss, was considerably 
 worse than an earthquake. Not that she said anything 
 on the spot, but one felt something ominous suspended 
 
160 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 in the very air." Then again, her sensibilities touched, 
 she was overflowing with tenderness and compassion. 
 Lifelong invalids testified to a power of uplifting sym- 
 pathy in her as of one over whom all the waves and 
 billows had likewise gone possessed by the rarest 
 few. On the great occasions, however, when these 
 opposing characteristics were molten together in the 
 furnace of the sacred cause for which she alternately 
 plead and flamed at the bar of public bodies, then 
 truly was she irresistible. Thus one seems to be deal- 
 ing with so many distinct personalities. Those who 
 met her silent and uncommunicative, after the exhaus- 
 tion of one of her legislative campaigns, passed judg- 
 ment on her as self-centered and unsocial ; those who 
 felt her soothing touch in the sick-room called her a 
 ministering angel; those who beheld her organizing 
 victory, and riding triumphant over obstacles that 
 would have disheartened the bravest, hailed in her a 
 modern Joan of Arc. 
 
 This diversity of judgment, and one of the natural 
 reasons for it, find striking expression in the following 
 extract from a beautiful memorial tribute written for 
 the " Home Journal," of New York, by Mrs. S. C. P. 
 Miller, of Princeton, N. J., and first printed Septem- 
 ber 11, 1889:- 
 
 " It was a long time before I could realize that she was 
 indeed a woman having much in common with the rest of us. 
 I saw her only when she was strong and self-collected, and 
 believed that to be her normal condition. But there came 
 a day when I got a new insight into her nature. I was in 
 Richmond, and she, on a mission farther South, halted there 
 and sent a note for me to come and see her. I went to the 
 hotel immediately, was ushered into her room, and there 
 found such a Miss Dix as I had never dreamed of. Over- 
 
THE BURDEN GROWING HEAVIER. 161 
 
 strain of mind and body, destroying her calm exterior and 
 bearing away the support of her high purpose, had left her 
 stretched upon a sofa, utterly weak, nervous, and tearful. 
 Not a bit of the heroism was left ; only the tried woman of 
 a type I knew full well. Amazed at her condition, I bent 
 over her with a tenderness before unknown, and a new bond 
 of sympathy was established between us ; so strange is it, 
 yet so true, that tears bring all women to the same level." 
 
 And yet, when at the lowest point of physical pros- 
 tration, Miss Dix could herself write to a friend : " I 
 shall be well enough when I get to Kentucky or Ala- 
 bama. The tonic I need is the tonic of opposition. 
 That always sets me on my feet." 
 
 Among the many persons of distinction with whom, 
 at this period of her career, Miss Dix came in inti- 
 mate contact, was the once famous Swedish novelist, 
 Frederika Bremer, then on a visit to the United 
 States. Herself suffering from exhaustion brought on 
 by overwork and on the edge of utter collapse, Miss 
 Bremer felt strongly drawn to the especial type of 
 ministering angel whose life had been consecrated to 
 the victims of nervous wreck. Of the various letters 
 she addressed from point to point to her American 
 friend, there are two or three which throw such light 
 both on the impression made on her by the personality 
 of Miss Dix, and on the nature of the far-reaching 
 schemes of benevolent action, outside of her own coun- 
 try, already engaging the ardent mind of the latter, as 
 to be well worthy of introduction here : 
 
 " CONEY ISLAND, near NEW YORK, August, 1850. 
 " There now she comes, heaping burning not coals, but 
 flowers on my guilty head ! Alas, dear Miss Dix ! not 
 so guilty as poor in carrying out by the hand what the heart 
 
162 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 and thought dictate. ... I am now about to start for my 
 Western journey, and am full of gratitude for the delightful 
 memories that I have gathered both in the North and South 
 from both man and nature. Not the least delightful of 
 these is that of a moonlight evening on the shores of the 
 Patapsco and the Chesapeake Bay, where I heard the story 
 of a simple life beginning, as the river before me, from a 
 little stream born of a heavenly fountain, and widening, 
 widening, as it ran forth through the valleys and fields and 
 cities, to a large, rich water, opening to mingle with the 
 waters of the ocean, and blessing and bearing fruit to every 
 shore as it went along in the still night, looked upon alone by 
 the clear light of heaven. That life and the river in the 
 moonlight have become one image in my soul, and a bright 
 and blessed spot it remains there, to be looked upon, to be 
 enjoyed, many a time during the flying and trying years of 
 life." 
 
 In a second letter, however, written by Miss Bremer, 
 November 2, 1850, from Cincinnati, Ohio, a cloud has 
 come across the fair sky, and the writer is found tak- 
 ing decided stand against a project already shaping 
 itself in Miss Dix's mind, the project, namely, that 
 when she should have finished her immediate work in 
 America through the successful foundation of asylums 
 in the various States, she would seek a new field of 
 labor in Europe, and especially in those parts of it 
 where the treatment of insanity was in the most back- 
 ward condition. To Frederika Bremer, the idea of 
 any good being effected, in the way of awakening the 
 people of Sweden to a sense of their duties toward 
 any class of their own population, by a foreigner, and 
 above all a foreigner entirely ignorant of the lan- 
 guage, seemed wholly- romantic. Her national pride 
 took offense at the bare proposition, as equally did 
 that of the Swedish Nightingale, Jenny Lind. Fee- 
 
THE BURDEN GROWING HEAVIER. 163 
 
 bly, however, did she measure the heroic spirit and 
 range of mind of the woman whose later career was 
 so marvelously to illustrate the truth that God has 
 made of " one blood all the dwellers on the earth," and 
 that faith and love find easy flight over every barrier 
 of sea, mountain, language, race, or religious creed. 
 Still, Frederika Bremer's sensitiveness was natural 
 enough to average, restricted humanity. Only she 
 forgot that the " Chinese Wall," to which she will be 
 found alluding, dated back to an antiquated order of 
 military defenses, regarded by her invincible friend 
 as only fit to keep out Tartars : 
 
 "CINCINNATI, OHIO, November 2, 1850. 
 
 " Sweden lacks neither goodwill nor means. What is 
 wanted there is energy and impulse of will ; and that, a 
 foreigner unknown in the country, and herself not knowing 
 its language and forms of government, could not give. 
 Jenny Lind is right in that opinion. As things now stand, 
 it would be easier for you to climb the Chinese Wall than to 
 work any good personally f or the unfortunate insane in Swe- 
 den. But believe me, dear Miss Dix, what you have done, 
 what you are doing in America, will, when properly dis- 
 closed, as it ought to be, and must be, to Sweden, work 
 more for a bettering of the insane asylums there than a gift 
 of ten millions could in their behalf. The power of the 
 Idea, and the power of example, are the great movers of 
 our time, and go from heart to heart, from land to land, 
 with electric shock. 
 
 " Most thankful am I, dear Miss Dix, for the interest you 
 express for me and my health. Thank God, I am very 
 well now. You certainly need more to take care of your 
 health than I now of mine. But you are as a general on a 
 battlefield, and cannot care for life till the battle is over 
 and victory won. May it be soon for you ! " 
 
 In Miss Bremer's third letter, written the following 
 
164 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 year from the Island of Cuba, she makes ample 
 amends. All wounds of aggrieved national pride are 
 now healed, and in a realm of free imagination, from 
 which all prosaic obstacles of alien languages and 
 forms of government are eliminated, she creates for 
 Miss Dix an ideal Utopia over which she shall be in- 
 stalled as queen : 
 
 "Si 1 . AMELIA ESTATE, CUBA, March 17, 1851. 
 " If I had rule on earth, Cuba this beautiful Antille 
 should be transformed into a great Maison de Sante'. a home 
 for the sickly and feeble. There they should sit in their rock- 
 ing-chairs under the palms and the tamarinds, and breathe 
 the delightful air of this island (which I cannot think was 
 better in Paradise), be caressed by the soft, loving breeze, 
 and drink in it, as in Olympian nectar, new health, new life. 
 And you should be the queen here, and have a cabinet of 
 ladies, kind and beautiful, such as I know several in the 
 United States, who should chiefly officiate as nurses for the 
 sick, as noble Valkyrias and healing goddesses for those 
 slain or wounded in the battle of life." 
 
 Not unlikely the majority of readers of this last let- 
 ter would set down Frederika Bremer as a far more 
 imaginative woman than Dorothea Lynde Dix. So 
 widely is genuine constructive power of imagination 
 confused with the activity of a mere dreamy fancy, 
 that the number is legion who think a more vigorous 
 exercise of the " faculty divine " demanded for the 
 creation of an airy ideal Utopia like this, than for 
 first summoning before the mind's eye, and then sub- 
 stantializing in massive buildings and wide-ranging 
 farms, parks, and gardens, the actual " Retreats " 
 from a harsh and cruel world, which Miss Dix pro- 
 vided for such hosts of sufferers. In reality, the 
 " noble Valkyrias," of whom Frederika Bremer speaks, 
 
THE BURDEN GROWING HEAVIER. 165 
 
 " healing goddesses for those slain or wounded in the 
 battle of life," were far more profoundly conceived, 
 than by herself, by the heroic woman to whom she 
 wrote. She knew, out of stern experience, that the 
 true Valkyrias are fateful and awful powers, who must 
 first stride the blast and sweep to the rescue through 
 the din and shrieks of the battlefield, before they can 
 think to reach, and bear off in their arms to the Val- 
 halla of rest, the fallen warriors trampled in dust and 
 blood. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE FIVE MILLION ACRE BILL. 
 
 A LETTER of Miss Dix, already quoted in Chapter 
 XIII., will be recalled, in which, in an hour of weari- 
 ness, she wrote : " I think, after this year, I shall cer- 
 tainly not suffer myself to engage in any legislative 
 affairs for a year. I can conceive the state of mind 
 which this induces to be like nothing save the influ- 
 ences of the gambling table, or any games of chance, 
 on such unlooked-for, and often trivial, balances do 
 the issues depend." 
 
 The stakes for which she had now for years been 
 playing were indeed pecuniarily enormous, involving 
 in the case of each separate asylum from fifty to two 
 hundred thousand dollars at the start, not to speak of 
 the further appropriations for permanent expenses 
 and for enlargement that must inevitably ensue. 
 They were stakes, moreover, on the winning or losing 
 of which hung the devout thanksgiving of a merciful 
 heart at relief now close at hand for cruel shapes of 
 human misery, or the silent torture that the old, sad 
 story must go on unchanged. 
 
 In comparison, however, with the far vaster stake 
 she was now about to play for, no longer in the 
 halls of State legislative assemblies, but on the arena 
 of the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
 United States, these previous ventures involved but 
 trivial issues. 
 
THE FIVE MILLION ACRE BILL. 167 
 
 To set the subject here to be entered on in a clear 
 light, it will be necessary to go back several years in 
 the story of Miss Dix's career. So manifold were 
 the operations she was in the habit of carrying on, 
 at the same time, that there is no other feasible way 
 but to set apart certain of them and treat them as 
 distinct episodes. 
 
 Already, at as early a date as 1848, had she me- 
 morialized Congress for a grant of 5,000,000 acres of 
 the public domain, the proceeds of the sale of which 
 were to be set apart as a perpetual fund for the care 
 of the indigent insane ; the sum total of the fund to 
 be divided, in proportion with their respective ratas 
 of population, among the thirty States of the Union. 
 Partial failure in her first attempt to secure this grant 
 had only acted on her in the way of that especial tonic 
 which she declared always set her on her feet the 
 tonic of opposition, and so led her, at a subsequent 
 session of Congress, to raise the amount of her plea to 
 the colossal sum of 12,225,000 acres. 
 
 It is easy to write down the numerals which stand 
 for 12,225,000 acres of land. A far harder, thing is 
 it to stretch the imagination to the point of conceiving 
 what they really imply. They mean nearly 20,000 
 square miles of territory. They mean an area nearly 
 three times the size of the State of Massachusetts, an 
 area more than a third as large as England, with 
 Wales included. Could she carry this great measure, 
 Miss Dix felt that the work of her life in her own 
 land would be permanently crowned. A steady iu- 
 come, growing in volume with the growth of popula- 
 tion in the country, would thus be secured in per- 
 petuity for the most wretched of the children of 
 earth. 
 
168 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 To bring the actual situation clearly before the 
 mind, a short explanation is here needful of the rela- 
 tions borne by the Federal Government of the United 
 States to the disposition of the enormous areas of the 
 public lands. 
 
 The original thirteen Revolutionary States, stretched 
 along the Atlantic seaboard, the States which had 
 fought for and achieved the independence of the 
 United States, had always maintained a claim to 
 share severally in the vast areas of unoccupied lands 
 lying to the westward, which they had individually 
 ceded to the Federal Government. Through subse- 
 quent purchase and conquest, this area had grown to 
 continental proportions ; and as new territories were 
 from time to time formed into States, and admitted as 
 integral members of the Union, the same claims were 
 fully accorded to them. Under the condition of a 
 public treasury overflowing with revenue from sales 
 of the public domain to settlers, the representatives in 
 Congress had, every now and then, deemed it wise to 
 distribute this money surplus among the several 
 States. Further, to the new States almost exclusively, 
 immense tracts of land, reaching in 1845 an aggre- 
 gate of 134,704,982 acres, had been granted for the 
 purpose of rapidly developing a system of general 
 education and of internal improvements. And yet 
 there still remained unassigned more than one thou- 
 sand millions of acres of the public domain. 
 
 In the main, the disposition thus far made of the 
 public lands had been judicious, and, especially, had 
 laid the foundation of an excellent school system 
 in the newly formed and thinly populated States. 
 The immense prizes, however, thus opened up to the 
 schemes of private speculators, internal improvement 
 
THE FIVE MILLION ACRE BILL. 169 
 
 companies, and projectors of new lines of railway, had 
 finally inflamed the cupidity of thousands. Congress 
 was besieged for grants of land, demanded on an in- 
 credibly lavish scale. 
 
 It was the sight of this pushing horde of greedy 
 adventurers, assailing Congress through the Represen- 
 tatives of their various States, that first inspired Miss 
 Dix with the thought, " Why cannot I too go in with 
 this selfish, struggling throng, and plead for God's 
 poor and outcast, that they shall not be forgotten ? " 
 From the outset, she felt that the undertaking was to 
 be a most formidable one. She had nothing to offer 
 in the way of material reward, no vote to barter, no 
 place to promise, no self-interested schemers to enlist 
 in bolstering up her project, nothing to fall back on 
 but the plea for mercy from a woman's lips. 
 
 It was on June 23, 1848, that her first Memorial 
 was submitted to Congress. Already had she taken 
 such precautionary steps and secured such influential 
 friends among leading Representatives from the vari- 
 ous States in which her name had now become a house- 
 hold word, that the Memorial was at once referred to 
 a select committee, and five thousand copies of it were 
 ordered to be printed for the use of the Senate. Her 
 prayer thus far was for a grant of 5,000,000 acres for 
 " the relief and support of the indigent insane in the 
 United States." 
 
 Greatly to the advantage of the effect produced by 
 this new Memorial was it that now Miss Dix ad- 
 dressed herself, not to the legislature of a single State, 
 but to the Congress of them all. She was thus en- 
 abled to focus in a single appeal the whole dire story 
 of her investigations throughout the length and 
 breadth of the land. 
 
170 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX, 
 
 " Present hospital provision [she declares] relieves (if we 
 do not include those institutions not considered remedial) 
 less than three thousand seven hundred patients. Where are 
 the remainder, and in what condition ? More than eighteen 
 thousand are unsuitably placed in private dwellings, in 
 jails, in poorhouses, and other often most wretched habita- 
 tions. ... I have myself seen more than nine thousand 
 idiots, epileptics, and insane in these United States, desti- 
 tute of appropriate care and protection ; and of this vast 
 and miserable company, sought out in jails, in poorhouses, 
 and in private dwellings, there have been hundreds, nay, 
 rather thousands, bound with galling chains, bowed beneath 
 fetters and heavy iron balls attached to drag chains, lacer- 
 ated with ropes, scourged with rods, and terrified beneath 
 storms of profane execrations and cruel blows ; now subject 
 to gibes and scorn and torturing tricks, now abandoned 
 to the most loathsome necessities, or subject to the vilest 
 and most outrageous violations. These are strong terms, but 
 language fails to convey the astonishing truths. I proceed 
 to verify this assertion, commencing with the State of 
 Maine." 
 
 Every State is then, seriatim, arraigned. The 
 amount of eye-witness testimony piled up is appalling. 
 And it strikes home all round. The member from 
 Georgia cannot turn superiorly on the member from 
 Rhode Island, and, quoting the case of Abram Sim- 
 mons, cry, " This, then, is the state of civilization and 
 humanity in your benighted region ! " Swiftly the 
 member from Rhode Island could retort : " Go on a 
 few pages farther, and see how edifying is the example 
 set by your enlightened State ! " Let us look over 
 the shoulder of the member from Georgia, reading 
 with him the following case in his own State, and then 
 ask how far he would have felt inclined to protract 
 the sectional controversy : 
 
THE FIVE MILLION ACRE BILL. 171 
 
 " It was an intensely hot day when I visited F. He was 
 confined in a roofed pen, which inclosed an area of about 
 eight feet by eight. The interstices between the unhewn 
 logs admitted the scorching rays of the sun then, as they 
 would open the way for the fierce winds and drenching 
 rains or frosts of the later seasons. The place was wholly 
 bare of furniture, no bench, no bed, no clothing. His 
 food, which was of the coarsest kind, was pushed through 
 spaces between the logs. ' Fed like the hogs, and no bet- 
 ter ! ' said a stander-by. His feet had been frozen by ex- 
 posure to cold in the winter past. Upon the shapeless 
 stumps, aided by his arms, he could raise himself against the 
 logs of his pen. In warm weather, this wretched place was 
 cleansed out once a week or fortnight ; not so in the colder 
 seasons. ' We have men called,' said his sister, ' and they 
 go in and tie him with ropes and throw him on the ground 
 and throw water on him, and my husband cleans out the 
 place.' But the expedient to prevent his freezing in winter 
 was the most strangely horrible. In the centre of the pen 
 was excavated a pit, six feet square, and deep ; the top was 
 closed over securely : and into this ghastly place, entered 
 through a trap-door, was cast the maniac, there to exist till 
 the returning warm weather induced his care-taker to with- 
 draw him ; there, without heat, without light, without pure 
 air, was left the pining, miserable maniac, whose piteous 
 groans and frantic cries might move to pity the hardest 
 heart." 
 
 Fortifying, through the testimony of leading ex- 
 perts on insanity in America and Europe, her own . 
 insistence on the impossibility of coping with these ter- 
 rible evils except by the establishment of scientifically 
 conducted asylums, Miss Dix concluded her Memorial 
 with a few strong words of appeal : 
 
 " Should your sense of moral responsibility seek support 
 in precedents for guiding present action, I may be permitted 
 
172 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 to refer to the fact of liberal grants of common national 
 property made, in the light of a wise discrimination, to 
 various institutions of learning ; also to advance in the new 
 States common school education, and to aid two seminaries 
 of instruction for the deaf and dumb, viz., that in Hartford, 
 Connecticut, and the school at Danville, in Kentucky, etc. 
 But it is not for one section of the United States that I 
 solicit benefits, while all beside are deprived of direct advan- 
 tages. ... I ask relief for the East and for the West, for 
 the North and for the South. ... I ask for the people that 
 which is already the property of the people, but posses- 
 sions so holden that it is through your action alone they 
 can be applied as now urged. ... I confide to you the 
 cause and the claims of the destitute, without fear or dis- 
 trust. I ask, for the thirty States of the Union, 5,000,000 
 acres of land, of the many hundreds of millions of public 
 lands, appropriated in such a manner as shall assure the 
 greatest benefits to all who are in circumstances of extreme 
 necessity, and who, through the providence of God, are 
 wards of the nation, claimants on the sympathy and care of 
 the public, through the miseries and disqualifications brought 
 upon them by the sorest afflictions with which humanity can 
 be visited. Respectfully submitted, 
 
 D. L. D. 
 "-WASHINGTON, June 23, 1848." 
 
 All omens at the start looked auspicious, as finds 
 expression in the two following letters of Miss Dix to 
 her cherished Philadelphia friend, Mrs. Robert Hare : 
 " WASHINGTON, D. C., July 5, 1848. 
 
 " For more than three weeks I have been ill with in- 
 fluenza. While unable to go out, I wrote my Memorial to 
 Congress. I can only say it embodies facts ; as a literary 
 effort it is open to severe criticism. Five thousand extra 
 copies ordered to be printed. 
 
 " I expressed my wish for a Select Committee. They 
 said it was unusual. I urged, and finally said, I must at 
 
THE FIVE MILLION ACRE BILL. 173 
 
 least be suffered to propose it. I wrote out my list and car- 
 ried my measure entirely, Mr. Beuton, Mr. Dix, Mr. 
 Harnegan, Mr. Bell, and Mr. Davis, of Massachusetts, of 
 course naming a Democratic majority. Mr. Benton prom- 
 ised me all his influence in the outset, and was to have been 
 chairman, and to have presented the Memorial, but was not 
 well, and it passed into the hands of one of my new parti- 
 sans, a man of good abilities and much influence. I really 
 think, if Congress does not suddenly adjourn, I shall pass 
 the bills, one asking for 5,000,000 acres of the public sur- 
 veyed lands for the curable and incurable indigent insane, 
 and the other praying for 2,000,000 acres for the blind and 
 the- deaf and dumb. Shall I not be happy, if I get all 
 this ! " 
 
 To MRS. ROBERT HARE. 
 
 " WASHINGTON, July 21, 1848. 
 
 " You who understand me, you who always sympathize 
 with my anxieties and rejoice in my successes, will be glad 
 to know that my whole committee, even the impracticable 
 Colonel Benton, concurred in my 5,000,000 acre bill, and it 
 was read this morning in the Senate. . . . 
 
 " The greatest difficulty in the Senate is already sur- 
 mounted. I feel gratified beyond expression for this much. 
 The new Democratic movement in the Northern States has 
 threatened the safety of the whole measure. Colonel Benton 
 was giving me much anxiety. I went to him ; he put me off 
 with promises to do for me all that was feasible under the 
 circumstances. ' Sir, I have not come to ask any favor for 
 myself, not the smallest; I ask for yourself, your State, 
 your people. Sir, you are a Democrat, and profess above all 
 others to support the interests of the people, the multitude, 
 the poor. This is the opportunity of showing the country 
 how far profession and practice correspond. Reject this 
 measure, you trample on the rights of the poor, you crush 
 them ; sustain it, and their blessings shall echo round your 
 pillow when the angel of the last hour comes to call you to 
 
174 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 the other life of action and progress ! ' * My dear Miss Dix, 
 I will do all I can ! ' ' Then, sir, the bill and the measure 
 are safe ! ' 
 
 " I found last week my strength sinking under my anxie- 
 ties. I, you know, am never sanguine, and feel confidence 
 only when a bill passes into an act, and is sealed by Gov- 
 ernor or President." 
 
 Alas! the great undertaking on which Miss Dix 
 had now embarked was destined to be a long and 
 baffling one. Her usual sagacity had been displayed 
 in the fear she had expressed, " The new Democratic 
 movement in the Northern States has threatened the 
 safety of the whole measure." This especial move- 
 ment, so dreaded by her, was a rising popular agitation 
 to arrest the hand of Congress in the free disposition 
 it was making of the public domain, and embodied a 
 war cry sure to tell with electric effect. There still 
 remained unsold a thousand million acres of the public 
 lands, and the cry raised was that these vast areas must 
 be sacredly held for the present and prospective ben- 
 efit of the poor man. It was robbery of the poor to 
 deed them away to railroad, canal, or general improve- 
 ment companies, or to let them fall into the hands of 
 greedy speculators who would swiftly advance their 
 price. The actual settler on the spot, the settler eager 
 to hew for himself and family a farm out of the wil- 
 derness, he was the real one to consider, and to him 
 should these lands be sold at the fixed and unalterable 
 price of $1.25 or 11.50 an acre. Lands granted to 
 railroads, and lying along their lines, were sure to go 
 up at once to $ 2.50 an acre, or even more ! This was 
 robbery of the poor to enrich the powerful ! 
 
 Of course, it helped little to argue that, without the 
 aid of railways and canals, the land would prove of 
 
THE FIVE MILLION ACRE BILL. 175 
 
 little actual value to the settler, or, further, that 
 out the establishment of public schools, the next gen- 
 eration would lapse into practical barbarism. These 
 were too recondite thoughts for popular apprehension. 
 It needed an orator of very moderate ability to fire 
 the public imagination with a dramatic picture of the 
 Hyder Ali devastation wrought over boundless regions 
 by the rapacious invasions of corporations, while it 
 may be doubted whether the genius of Edmund Burke 
 would have sufficed to picture with adequate effect the 
 spectacle of the poor man's cart otherwise stranded 
 up to the hubs in mud, or that of his hay and corn 
 rotting, or his butter, milk, and eggs valueless, for 
 want of an attainable market. Land was land, wher- 
 ever situated, and $2.50 an acre was a dollar more 
 than $1.50. The power of this outcry, then, to para- 
 lyze subservient politicians was one Miss Dix fully ap- 
 preciated from the moment it began to be heard. 
 
 It can readily be seen, therefore, that it was a sea 
 of stormy passions on which she had launched her 
 5,000,000 acre bill. She was, so to speak, between 
 two fires. On the one hand, the agrarian war cry 
 which had been raised in the Eastern States would be 
 sure to frighten a large class of Democratic politicians 
 from incurring popular wrath by voting away another 
 acre ; while, on the other hand, the fierce material in- 
 terests of syndicates of land speculators would stimu- 
 late them to fight against the intrusion of any new 
 measure that threatened to swell the amount of public 
 grants they sought to confine to their own private 
 channels. 
 
 By the courtesy of Congress, a special alcove in the 
 Capitol Library was set apart for Miss Dix's use, and 
 there was she daily on hand to converse with mem- 
 

 176 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 bers. The thought of the scenes that must have been 
 witnessed in that quiet alcove awakens a longing that 
 some picturesque record of them might have been 
 preserved. Certainly, the contrast between the com- 
 mon experience of a Senator or member of the House, 
 as a party man beset on every hand by those fiercely 
 urging political or material schemes, and tossed to and 
 fro by alternate promises and threats of what would 
 ensue if he did, or did not, vote in this way or that, 
 and his experience when he found himself in the pres- 
 ence of this quiet, low-voiced, entreating, yet com- 
 manding woman, speaking as out of a higher realm to 
 him to "do justice, love mercy, and thus walk hum- 
 bly with his God," must have been most impressive. 
 No wonder, then, that member after member was 
 brought over to promise her that, in the fierce strug- 
 gle going on as to the disposition of lands soon to be 
 the future seat of empire, he would never lose sight 
 of the piteous claims of the helpless ones for whom 
 she was pleading. 
 
 To many of Miss Dix's friends in various parts of 
 the Union particularly to those who, as themselves 
 superintendents of insane asylums, were thoroughly 
 alive to the import of her action it seemed an as- 
 sured fact that her bill would speedily pass both 
 houses of Congress, and receive the signature of the 
 President. Rejoicing in the thought that her exhaust- 
 ing labors would soon be over, and that, after crown- 
 ing them with this magnificent success in securing full 
 provision for ages to come for the indigent insane, she 
 would now be able to enter on a period of rest, the 
 question had already arisen among them as to the 
 next field for the exercise of her invaluable energies. 
 Brief at best, they knew, would be the season of recu- 
 
THE FIVE MILLION ACRE BILL. 177 
 
 peration to which she would consent, for in this great 
 cause she literally "lived, and moved, and had her 
 being." What farther service, then, could she render 
 it? The view taken by one large and benevolent 
 mind will be found in the following letter from Dr. 
 Luther V. Bell, of the McLean Asylum, Somerville, 
 
 Mass. : 
 
 " MCLEAN ASYLUM, December 29, 1848. 
 
 " DEAR MADAM, Your friends cannot but trust that 
 these terribly severe labors may be nearly at a close. And 
 so, released by the actual accomplishment or encouraging 
 inception of your labors, how much more remains to be 
 done, which no one but you can do ! The aggregation of 
 misery and misfortune, of which you have sounded the 
 depths, and have done so much to alleviate, affords yet an 
 almost boundless field of labor with the pen, if possible of 
 more moment than any present relief through personal de- 
 votion. In a country rushing upon the crowded population, 
 the crimes, the miseries, of the Old World with gigantic 
 strides, cannot something be done which shall tell to all 
 future time, by informing the world, at least the wise and 
 good of the world, how these monster evils can be grappled 
 with? 
 
 " Is not our want of fixed principles owing to our want 
 of facts ? Now, it seems to me that when you have finished 
 the specific course laid out for yourself, if you could, in the 
 light of all your personal experience of human suffering, 
 take a year and sit down to the composition of a volume 
 which should meet the emergency alluded to, you might 
 accomplish more than in any other way. A personal narra- 
 tive of your last ten years' life would contain just the need- 
 ful elements, if the fair conclusions could be eliminated from 
 it, which you alone could do. 
 
 " Accept, dear madam, our heartfelt regards and sincer- 
 est prayers. Yours truly, 
 
 " LUTHER V. BELL." 
 
178 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 What she should turn her mind to after the pas- 
 sage of her 5,000,000 acre bill was, however, the last 
 thought with Miss Dix during her protracted labors 
 throughout the Congressional session of 1848-49. 
 First must the bill be passed ; then would it be time 
 enough to ask, " What next ? " She understood the 
 working of legislative affairs far more thoroughly than 
 did her sanguine friends. Already, January 30, 1849, 
 had she expressed her own view of the actual situa- 
 tion in a letter to her brother Joseph : - 
 
 " Specially and prominently, at this particular time, I am 
 watching and guarding the 5,000,000 bill. Through the 
 courtesy of my friends in the Senate and House, a special 
 committee room is assigned to my use in the Capitol. I am. 
 neither sanguine nor discouraged. I think the bill may be 
 deferred till next session. A new difficulty is to be com- 
 bated, the President [James K. Polk] having declared 
 to his Cabinet that he will veto all and every land bill which 
 does not make a provisional payment to the general govern- 
 ment. I suppose this will be gotten over by a small pre- 
 mium upon every acre sold. I, fortunately, am on good terms 
 with Mrs. Polk and the President, knowing well all their 
 family friends in Tennessee and North Carolina. The Vice- 
 President, Mr. Dallas, the intimate associate of many of my 
 Philadelphia friends, is warmly in favor of the bill. I have 
 decidedly declined the interposition of the State legislatures, 
 preferring to rely on the ' uninstructed ' deliberations and 
 acts of the two branches of Congress. The public interest 
 is involved for all the States, and those who will vote nega- 
 tively do so on constitutional grounds, imaginarily involving 
 the federal integrity." 
 
 " Neither sanguine nor discouraged ! " In this state 
 of mind Miss Dix worked steadily throughout the ses- 
 sion. Every day witnessed fresh accessions to the 
 ranks of her supporters, and she no doubt had an ac- 
 
THE FIVE MILLION ACRE BILL. 179 
 
 tual majority of members of both houses with her. 
 But many of them were halting and half-hearted. The 
 agrarian cry had carried consternation into the ranks 
 of the Democratic party. They must wait till the 
 popular excitement had abated, and to this end a 
 "masterly inactivity" seemed the policy dictated. 
 The bill was deferred and deferred, and finally al- 
 lowed to lapse. Still Miss Dix bated no jot of faith 
 or hope. To her, this was but the first movement in 
 a great campaign. It had suffered check. She would 
 appear on the field again, and in more solid phalanx. 
 A strong impression had been made, an impression so 
 strong that but for untoward circumstances it would 
 have resulted in decisive action. 
 
 " What though the field be lost ? 
 All is not lost." 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE 12,225,000 ACRE BILL. (SESSIONS 1850-51.) 
 
 AT the outset of the session of 1850, Miss Dix for 
 the second time memorialized Congress in behalf of 
 the indigent insane of the United States, as well as 
 of the indigent blind and deaf and dumb. The 
 44 tonic of opposition " had acted with its usual invig- 
 orating effect, and she now came forward, not as be- 
 fore with a bill for 5,000,000 acres of the public do- 
 main, but with a bill for 12,225,000 acres, of which 
 10,000,000 should enure to the benefit of the insane, 
 2,225,000 to that of the blind and deaf and dumb. 
 A favorable report on the Memorial was at once made, 
 and every prospect looked promising of its speedy suc- 
 cessful passage. From the press, and from enlight- 
 ened public sentiment all over the land, came strong 
 indorsements of the measure. Likewise, at the annual 
 conference of the " Medical Superintendents of 
 American Institutions for the Insane " the following 
 vote was unanimously passed : 
 
 " Resolved, That this Association regards with deep in- 
 terest the progress of the magnificent project which has 
 been, and continues to be, urged by Miss D. L. Dix on the 
 consideration of Congress, proposing the grant of a portion 
 of the public domain by the federal government, the pro- 
 ceeds of which are to be devoted to the endowment of the 
 public charities throughout the country, and that it meets 
 with our unqualified sanction. 
 
 " THOMAS S. KIRKBRIDE, Se-cretary." 
 
THE 12,225 flOO ACRE BILL. 181 
 
 Once again was Miss Dix in her old place in the 
 alcove of the Capitol Library. With her the day 
 always began at four or five o'clock in the morning, 
 when, on rising, she sacredly set apart the first hour 
 for her religious devotions. In the most hurried time 
 of work or travel she would never intermit this habit, 
 feeling that when, frayed in spirit through pressure 
 of care, the virtue had gone out of her, she must 
 faint and utterly fall but for refuge in this mount 
 of prayer. " God was her present help in time of 
 trouble." Rarely speaking of her personal religious 
 feelings except in confidential hours, religion was 
 yet the breath of her life. Passionately fond of 
 hymns, and with a memory stored with them, from 
 the early Latin hymns of the Church and onward, 
 through those of Bernard of Cluny in the Middle 
 Ages and the rich stores of the German mystics and 
 later Moravians, to the hymns of Wesley, Faber, 
 Whittier, and Bowring in more recent days, she rose 
 on their wings into a realm of peace and thanksgiving 
 in which, for the time at least, all the struggle and sor- 
 row of earth were hushed. 
 
 Her hour, however, of devotion over, the late kneel- 
 ing and dependent woman was forthwith another be- 
 ing. Once again the sense of naked moral responsi- 
 bility had taken exclusive possession of her, and every 
 nerve of action was on the stretch. Ill or well, in 
 pain or in temporary relief from pain, on herself alone 
 she felt it to depend whether a vast cry of misery 
 should continue to rise and beat in vain against a 
 brazen vault, or be heard and answered, comforted 
 and stilled. 
 
 By the hour of breakfast, at eight o'clock, she had 
 despatched the daily stint of her immense correspon- 
 
182 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 dence, now embracing the needs and problems of asy- 
 lums in twenty States, and ten o'clock saw her seated 
 in her chair in the alcove. There for four or five 
 hours on the stretch, often through the intolerable 
 heats of a July, or August, session, would she pa- 
 tiently reason with, instruct, and entreat the mem- 
 bers brought in to see her. She was at this period 
 of life forty-eight years old, although her rich brown 
 hair showed scarcely a line of white, and her blue 
 gray eyes, so large and dilating in the pupils as often 
 to be mistaken for black, retained all their range 
 of expression from lightning-swift decision to tender 
 compassion. Patience and a sweet conciliatory spirit 
 were now the needful weapons of a nature constitu- 
 tionally high-strung and imperious. Infinitely weari- 
 some was it, this going over the same ground a 
 thousand times and replying to the same stereotyped 
 objections. The head might throb, the old sharp pain 
 in the chest might pierce, the heat of 95 to 100 
 might threaten collapse of brain. Still, to give way 
 for a moment and suffer any irritability of physical 
 fibre, any impatience of scorn at political subserviency 
 to interrupt the even flow of persuasion and entreaty, 
 might be to make an enemy, not of herself this 
 was nothing but of her sacred cause. 
 
 Miss Dix had studied the art of cogent statement 
 and vital appeal as few orators study it. It was not 
 by nature hers, except on the condition of the varied 
 and often contradictory elements of her character be- 
 coming fused in the heat of a great idea. But in 
 those days of impassioned activity she had mastered 
 this art to a rare degree. Few ever recognized more 
 clearly the power of a fit word than she. In her 
 reading, she habitually noted down every telling 
 
THE 12#25,000 ACRE BILL. 183 
 
 phrase, till her vocabulary became full, exact, and 
 varied. Besides, her life for now many years had 
 been one long school of practice in dealing with every 
 type of human character. 
 
 None the less, this sedulous cultivation of speech 
 was, in her case, at the last remove from any trace of 
 rhetorical display. Her nature was too intense, too 
 forceful, too straightforward to admit for a moment 
 of this. She studied language as the soldier grinds 
 his sword, to make it cut. Those who heard her on 
 the rare occasions, except on Sundays in prisons, 
 when she ever made an address of any length, on 
 occasions, for example, when she would call together 
 the attendants and nurses in a new asylum, to speak 
 to them about their sacred duties say they never 
 listened to such moving speech from human lips. 
 Her auditory would be wrought to mingled tears and 
 exultation, as though in their merciful vocation the 
 divine privilege of the very call of Jesus, to be eyes 
 to the blind and feet to the lame, had descended to 
 them from out the heavens. And yet this was the 
 same woman, who, at times of weariness or self-con- 
 centration, would leave no other impression on j many 
 but that she was hard and unsympathetic. 
 
 The hot summer of the session of 1850 was wearily 
 wearing away, but still Miss Dix kept up heart and 
 hope. Her bill had actually passed by a full majority 
 the House of Representatives, the popular branch, of 
 which she stood in the greater fear as more sure to be 
 affected by the immediate political passions of the day. 
 There was to be farther deliberation in the Senate. In 
 this body, however, she felt sure of a victory, unless in 
 the press of business in the last days of the session her 
 bill should be crowded out and so " deferred." 
 
184 LIFE OF DOROTHEA Z. DIX. 
 
 As late in the season, then, as August 29, 1850, 
 she is found replying to a friend, begging her to 
 seek change and recuperation in the more bracing air 
 of the North, in a tone marked by the exhaustion 
 under which she was suffering, but still full of her 
 usual patience of resignation : 
 
 u None can tell what a mountain will be lifted from my 
 breast if my bills pass. I shall feel almost as if I could say, 
 4 Lord, let now thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes 
 have seen thy salvation ! ' But I recollect that my times 
 and seasons are His, and for His work. He will do as 
 seems to Himself good. I ought to be ready to meet all 
 changes, all events, but the troubles of the miserable world 
 would, if now no way were opened for their alleviation, 
 make the hour of death mournful to me." 
 
 Another fortnight of the " hope deferred that mak- 
 eth the heart sick," and, at the close of the session, 
 she is forced to write to the same friend these few sad 
 words : " My bill is deferred to the first month of the 
 next session, the second Monday. Pray that my pa- 
 tience do not fail utterly." 
 
 Patience did not fail. Once again, the winter ses- 
 sion of 1851 saw Miss Dix at her post. Delay suc- 
 ceeded delay in getting the bill called up. But at last, 
 February 11, was penned the following letter to her 
 friend, Miss Heath. How thrilling a picture it gives 
 of what Miss Dix had herself characterized as the 
 feverish spirit of the gambling table, of a scene 
 rather, as it rose before her impassioned mind, in 
 which the God of Mercy and the Power of Darkness 
 were playing for a stupendous stake of human succor 
 or human misery. The letter is hastily dashed off, at 
 intervals, from her alcove in the Capitol Library. 
 
THE 12^5,000 ACRE BILL. 185 
 
 " WASHINGTON, D. C., February 11, 1851. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND, My bill is up in the Senate, I 
 awaiting the result with great anxiety, but a calmness which 
 astonishes myself. 
 
 " A motion to lay on the Speaker's table is just lost, 32 to 
 14. It is said that this is the test vote. They are speaking 
 on amendments. The danger is from debate. I dread 
 Chase of Ohio. 
 
 " Mr. Mason of Virginia sends me word the bill will 
 pass. 
 
 " A message -from Mr. Pearce, who says the bill will, will 
 pass ah ! if it should fail now. 
 
 "Mr. Shields just comes to say the bill will pass. You 
 know not how terrible this suspense ! I am perfectly calm, 
 and as cold as ice. 
 
 "4 P. M. The bill has passed the Senate beautifully. 
 A large majority, more than two to one ! thirty-six yeas 
 to sixteen nays." 
 
 A glorious victory gained in the Senate ! At the 
 last session she had achieved an equal one in the 
 House of Representatives. But before a bill can be- 
 come an act, it must pass both Houses in the same 
 session and be signed by the President. There re- 
 mained, then, the action of the Houe of Representa- 
 tives. What will that action be ? It is the popular 
 branch, its term of office is shorter than that of the 
 Senate, its members are more sensitive to the tempo- 
 rary wind of the hour. Of the real convictions of a 
 large majority of these members there is no question. 
 Will they be brave enough to act on them ? Their 
 proceedings are singularly vacillating and at cross- 
 purposes. They are letting " I dare not " wait upon 
 " I would." Now the question of the immediate con- 
 sideration of the bill is defeated by the " rigid enforce- 
 ment of the rules," and now, in turn, twice are the 
 
186 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 rules suspended by a vote of the same House, the 
 first time by 105 nays to 50 yeas, the second by 108 
 to 70. The opportunity is thus again on hand, but 
 still some subtle political fear is paralyzing action. 
 Each time the House proceeds to other business. No, 
 it dares not face the question. Delay is interposed 
 on delay, till the session is well nigh over, and the bill 
 will now probably lapse. 
 
 Patient, travailing martyr, gird up thy loins and 
 nerve thy indomitable spirit for a second cruel defeat. 
 It came. And yet she never gave way to despair. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 AGAIN THE 12,225,000 ACRE BILL. (SESSIONS 1852, 1854.) 
 
 NEARLY two years elapsed after the second miscar- 
 riage of her Land Bill before Miss Dix ventured to 
 appeal again to Congress, and then, as far as 1852 
 1853 was concerned, only in a tentative way. In vain 
 had she exercised the spell of her magnetic personal- 
 ity over the minds of Representatives of all the States 
 of the Union. While in her presence, and under the 
 sway of her spirit, the superior number of both houses 
 had given her assurances of support ; had indeed 
 given her, when the test of the vote came, a large ma- 
 jority, though not unitedly in the same session. But 
 once back among their associates, and delivered over 
 to partisan newspapers and menacing letters from 
 constituents, enough were always wavering to be glad 
 to seize every pretext for delay, and thus imperil the 
 cause. She felt, then, that she must wait. Mean- 
 while, she was indefatigably at work in the Southern, 
 Middle, and Western States, winning the memorable 
 series of victories that have been already narrated in 
 previous chapters. 
 
 With the opening, however, of the session of 1854, 
 all the signs looked favorable for renewing the na- 
 tional campaign. The first fierce excitement in the 
 Democratic party over the land issue had in a measure 
 subsided, while the unexampled series of triumphs she 
 herself had achieved in so many States had steadily 
 
188 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 increased in Congress the moral ascendancy of her 
 name. Five thousand copies of her Memorial were at 
 once ordered to be printed, and strong supporters in 
 each house stepped to the front to champion her cause. 
 She now worked with buoyant hope, seeing assured 
 victory ahead. Still, she jealously watched every step, 
 and more eagerly than ever studied the character of 
 every Congressman, concentrating her personal efforts 
 on those she most feared. It was the proudest and 
 happiest year of her life, seemingly to her the crested 
 tidal wave, lifting and bearing on in irresistible flood 
 the cumulative results of fourteen years of toil, anx- 
 iety, and prayer. 
 
 The first signal victory came, March 9, 1854, when 
 her bill passed the Senate by a large majority. No 
 other record of her feeling over this triumph remains 
 than a hasty report to her friend Miss Heath. It is 
 brief and simple, but full of her habitual devoutness 
 of spirit. 
 
 " WASHINGTON, D. C., March 9, 1854. 
 
 " DEAR ANNIE, Yours this morning received just when 
 I was putting pen to paper to tell you that my bill has 
 passed the Senate by more than two thirds majority, 25 
 to 12. Congratulations flow in. I, in my heart, think the 
 very opponents are glad; and, as I rejoice quietly and 
 silently, I feel that it is ' the Lord who has made my moun- 
 tain to stand strong.' " 
 
 Still, the House of Representatives remained to be 
 carried. There she feared the sunken rocks on which 
 the bark of her hopes might again be shattered. Five 
 months of protracted suspense must she linger through 
 before at last, in August, the decisive vote came. It 
 was victory for the bill. Once again, a brief note to 
 Miss Heath records the fact. 
 
AGAIN THE 12#25JOOO ACRE BILL. 189 
 
 " WASHINGTON, D. C., August 28, 1854. 
 
 " DEAR ANNIE, As you know, my ten million acre 
 bill (rather 12,225,000), has passed the House, 98 to 84, 
 and is in its final passage through the Senate. My District 
 Hospital Bill has also passed the Senate unanimously, for 
 $100,000, for the relief of the insane of the Army and 
 Navy, and those of the District." 
 
 It will thus be seen that, in this year-long series of 
 congressional campaigns, twice in the Senate, and 
 twice in the House, both being Democratic by large 
 majorities, had Miss Dix carried her bill trium- 
 phantly through. This last time, happily, success had 
 been secured in both houses in the same session ; and 
 now the bill but awaited the signature of the President 
 to become law. 
 
 Twelve million, two hundred and twenty-five thou- 
 sand acres of God's earth rescued, and consecrated 
 forever to the succor of the most sorely-afflicted and 
 cruelly-entreated of earth's creatures ! Who can grasp 
 in imagination the full significance of this ! None 
 surely, even by the most distant approach, in compar- 
 ison with th!8 merciful woman who for fourteen years 
 had traversed the dread Inferno in which these miser- 
 able wretches lay in chains and fire, and whose very 
 dreams had been haunted by their cries. Divided 
 among the several States, and carefully protected so 
 as to share in the steadily augmenting value of land, 
 this vast domain meant stately buildings rising on 
 every hand, with every appliance to minister to the 
 " mind diseased ; " meant all the resources of advan- 
 cing science and humanity in sacred league to 
 
 " Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
 Raze out the written troubles of the brain; " 
 
 meant sunshine, grass, flowers, singing birds, and bab- 
 
190 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 bling brooks in emulous accord to weave together 
 " the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." 
 And all this had been won by the hand of a single 
 frail and suffering woman. Hers the prophetic fore- 
 sight, hers the intrepid courage, hers the unwearying 
 patience, hers the force of angelic persuasion, through 
 the united power of which, " troubled on every side 
 yet not distressed, cast down but not destroyed," she 
 had wrought this triumph of mercy. 
 
 Congratulations fast flowed in. Already in 1850, 
 had Dr. Thomas S. Kirkbride, that steadfast light 
 through the darkest hours of the history of insanity in 
 America, assured her, " I have full confidence your 
 bill will pass, and nothing but the supreme selfishness 
 of politicians which is genuine insanity as to the 
 welfare of the country, of the very worst kind keeps 
 Congress from doing some good acts which would 
 tend to redeem them in the estimation of the people." 
 But now he could rejoicingly write, " A thousand con- 
 gratulations on the success of your noble, disinterested 
 and persevering efforts ! There is some virtue yet 
 in Congress, and a large hope for the Kepublic." 
 
 It seemed at last that the especial work of Miss 
 Dix in the United States was over, at once triumphant, 
 and dying through its very fullness of triumph. The 
 letters which now poured in upon her from superin- 
 tendents and philanthropic men and women were full 
 of the tenderest expression of a sense of relief, that 
 henceforth she would be freed from the necessity of 
 such exhausting labors. No more need now of these 
 lonely journeyings, these explorations of the depths of 
 human misery in remote and hidden places, these 
 long and weary wrestlings with successive State legis- 
 latures. 
 
AGAIN THE 12,225,000 ACRE BILL. 191 
 
 She was, in truth, in a condition of extreme exhaus- 
 tion when the final victory came. But now at last 
 had arrived the day of honorable discharge from the 
 service. She could receive it, brimful of the sense of 
 thanksgiving, her heart filled with the " peace of God 
 passing understanding" for all she had been per- 
 mitted to do. Then, rested and recuperated, she could 
 write out the wonderful story of her life, and, as her 
 friend Dr. Luther V. Bell had urged upon her, make 
 a book that would do more for the cause she so loved 
 than any further practical action. So things looked, 
 in that supreme hour of success, to all Miss Dix's 
 sympathetic friends. 
 
 And now, suddenly and all unlocked for, out of 
 the clear, radiant sky, without a cloud to presage its 
 advent, there fell a lightning bolt. The President, 
 Franklin Pierce, so the incredible rumor ran, had 
 vetoed the bill. A stroke of his pen, and the bright 
 vision had vanished. The principality was gone! 
 The stately buildings, the trained service of science 
 and humanity, the sheltering homes, everything but 
 the poor wretches who were to have been ministered 
 to by these, had, as by the malign stroke of a magi- 
 cian's wand, been changed into so many idle and empty 
 pictures of mirage ! The struggle and oft times agony 
 of the long years of travail had aborted in nothing ! 
 
 Miss Dix fairly staggered under the blow. At 
 first, while it was merely rumor, she refused to credit 
 it. It could not be ! President Pierce, she insisted, 
 had personally testified to her his own interest in the 
 measure. A veto so purely arbitrary, so purely 
 founded in individual will, a veto in the face of such 
 great majorities where his own party was in the ascen- 
 dency no ! it could not be ! Had not twice in the 
 
192 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 last four years, and after protracted debate, the bill 
 passed House and Senate ? Here was the clear will 
 of a humane and enlightened people, declared through 
 its representatives. Impossible, that any single man 
 could have the wanton cruelty to stand forth now, 
 when Righteousness and Peace had thus kissed one 
 another, and cry, " I forbid the bans ! " Alas ! ru- 
 mor swiftly passed into stern reality. The bill had 
 been vetoed. 
 
 For a few days Miss Dix bravely rallied from the 
 stroke. While a ray of hope remained she was all 
 fire of action. Swiftly calling to her side her most 
 powerful supporters, she pressed upon them the ques- 
 tion of the possibility of still carrying the bill over 
 the presidential veto by a two thirds majority. They 
 sadly told her no. There were too many subservient 
 politicians, to whom to cross the will of the executive 
 would mean political death. Then she bowed her 
 head, doing her best to say, " Thy will, not mine, be 
 done ! " but sinking into a state of such complete physi- 
 cal prostration as to feel that absolute rest and change 
 were the immediate question of life or death with 
 her. She was willing to go away new, to go any- 
 where. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE PRESIDENTIAL VETO. 
 
 AT the first rumor of an impending veto, letters of 
 indignant sympathy poured in upon Miss Dix. " Is 
 it possible," wrote Dr. Kirkbride, " that the President 
 can really think of vetoing your bill? If he does, 
 ought he not to expect to see the ghosts of insane 
 people around his bed at night, as long as he lives ? " 
 This echoed the feeling of superintendents of asylums 
 in all quarters, and of philanthropic men and women 
 who understood the dire urgency of the case. 
 
 On the other hand, the partisan press of the Demo- 
 cratic party, even that portion of it that had lately 
 been loudest in the praise of Miss Dix, now rallied 
 round the President, and lauded his action as the 
 acme of constitutional wisdom and sobriety. As an 
 instance of the disgust this so evidently servile reac- 
 tion awakened in the breasts of many high-minded 
 men and women, the following extract from a letter 
 of William Darlington, of Pennsylvania, will suf- 
 fice: 
 
 " My sympathies have been so long and so fervently en- 
 listed in behalf of your great philanthropic enterprise 
 now so cruelly thwarted by the Executive that I find it 
 difficult to express my sentiments in reference to that pro- 
 cedure in terms of moderation. I have lost all patience 
 with those narrow-souled, caviling demagogues who ever- 
 lastingly plead the Constitution against every generous 
 
194 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L DIX. 
 
 measure, and recklessly trample it under foot whenever it 
 stands in the way of their selfish purposes and foregone 
 conclusions. . . . But what has more especially excited my 
 disgust and contempt in this connection is the course taken 
 by the servile partisan press. During the years of your 
 untiring efforts to get the recently vetoed bill through the 
 two houses of Congress, the manufacturers of public opinion 
 (so called) seized every occasion to ingratiate themselves 
 with the humane portion of the community by lauding the 
 objects of Miss Dix's bill, and heralding the disinterested 
 services of its benevolent author and advocate. . . . Had 
 the bill been permitted to become a law, no doubt it would 
 have been pronounced and claimed by the despicable echoes 
 of the presidential will and pleasure as one of the noblest 
 acts of his administration. . . . But, whatever may be the 
 result, no arbitrary exercise of executive power, no acci- 
 dent of time nor chance, can deprive you of the satis- 
 faction of having nobly and faithfully performed your 
 part toward alleviating the miseries incident to our fallen 
 race." 
 
 The objections taken by President Pierce to the 
 12,225,000 Acre Bill were, as duly set forth in his veto 
 message, partly constitutional and partly grounded in 
 expediency. Beginning with an earnest declaration 
 that he had " been compelled to resist the deep sym- 
 pathies of his own heart in favor of the humane pur- 
 poses sought to be accomplished " by the bill, he then 
 went on to unfold the reasons that had dictated his 
 action. To these reasons powerful rejoinders were 
 made in the Senate and the House of Representatives 
 by Hon. John M. Clayton, of Delaware, Hon. Albert 
 G. Brown, of Mississippi, Hon. Mr. Badger, of North 
 Carolina, and other prominent members. 
 
 Congress, the President declared, had power to 
 make provisions of an eleemosynary character within 
 
THE PRESIDENTIAL VETO. 195 
 
 the limits of the District of Columbia, but nowhere 
 outside of it. This single district was under the espe- 
 cial rule of government, and so furnished the one ex- 
 ception to an otherwise inflexible law. At the same 
 time, he insisted on the right of Congress to grant 
 lands on a lavish scale for schools, colleges, railroads, 
 and various objects of internal improvement. When- 
 ever, however, Congress had ventured to cross this 
 line, as on two previous occasions it had done, in Ken- 
 tucky and in Connecticut, in favor of the indigent 
 blind and the indigent deaf and dumb, then it had 
 transcended its power, and set up unsafe precedents, 
 examples to be avoided rather than followed. " If 
 Congress have power," he then proceeded, " to make 
 provision for the indigent insane without the limits of 
 this district, it has the same power to provide for the 
 indigent who are not insane, and thus to transfer to 
 the federal government the charge of all the poor in 
 all the States" 
 
 " The charge of all the poor in all the States ! " 
 Here was the alarmist argument driven to the last 
 extreme. The fact that a power may be abused is 
 conclusive reason why it ought not to exist. To this 
 it was pertinently replied, " Because Congress has the 
 power to order six steam frigates to be built, shall 
 this power be abrogated for fear it may order sixty ? 
 Because Congress may rightly declare war against 
 Spain, shall this power be taken away because war 
 might be declared against England, France, Italy, 
 Germany, and Russia, combined? A measure of 
 common sense must be allowed for." 
 
 "The fountains of charity," continued President 
 Pierce, " will be dried up at home, and the several 
 States, instead of bestowing their own means on the 
 
196 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 social wants of their own people, may themselves be- 
 come humble suppliants for the bounty of the federal 
 government, reversing their true relation to this 
 Union." 
 
 To this it was answered by Hon. Albert G. Brown, 
 Senator from Mississippi : 
 
 " I have a better opinion of the States than is here indi- 
 cated. In ray opinion, * the fountains of their charity ' are 
 not more likely to be ' dried up ' by grants of land for the 
 benefit of the insane than is their passion for learning to be 
 extinguished by similar grants for school purposes ; nor is 
 a State more likely to become * an humble suppliant for the 
 bounty of this government,' when she receives a small quan- 
 tity of land for the relief of suffering humanity, than she is 
 when she receives a larger quantity for internal improve- 
 ments and other purposes. We have seen that grants of 
 land for school purposes have not ' dried up ' the passion for 
 learning, but have stimulated it, and caused it to flow in a 
 steadier and a broader stream." 
 
 " To my mind, this is the first land bill ever brought for- 
 ward in the true spirit of the deeds of cession. It is the 
 first bill that ever proposed to divide the lands among the 
 States having in them a common interest, share and share 
 alike. 1 ... I am a new State man, and I am a just man. 
 And I now say to the new States, You have no right to take 
 from the common fund for colleges, for schools, for rail- 
 roads, for swamp drainage, and for other special purposes 
 of your own, and then say to your older sisters, You shall 
 have no part for any purpose of yours. Can we receive for 
 our schools, and deny to the old States for their asylums ? 
 . . . Unless it shall be shown that it is unconstitutional to 
 
 1 Out of the, in round numbers, 135,000,000 acres of the public 
 domain which had up to this date been granted by Congress, practi- 
 cally the whole had gone to measures for the rapid development of 
 the new States, while the original thirteen States had received scarcely 
 anything. 
 
THE PRESIDENTIAL VETO. 197 
 
 endow a lunatic asylum per se, it will follow that if you can 
 give to a college in Alabama from the common fund, you 
 may give to an asylum in Delaware from the same fund." 
 
 Pursuing the argument of his veto message, Presi- 
 dent Pierce next assumed the position that all previous 
 grants of portions of the public domain had been for 
 "value received," and therefore were not outright 
 gifts. By this he meant that when conferred for edu- 
 cational purposes, railway and canal construction, etc., 
 the value of lands remaining to government was 
 thereby doubled in value, and thus a quid pro quo se- 
 cured. To this, it was very sensibly replied : 
 
 " Value received from whom ? Not from the grantees. 
 To them, the grant was a naked, unqualified gift ; they paid 
 nothing, did not promise to pay anything. They were gifts 
 in the broadest, fullest, and most comprehensive sense of the 
 term. . . . The fact that one section of land is doubled in 
 value by giving away another section may be a very good ar- 
 gument to justify the use of an actual existing power. But 
 if I have no power to give one section, it is useless to tell me 
 how much the gift will enhance the value of the next sec- 
 tion." 
 
 As though half conscious how indistinct a line could 
 really be drawn between the educational and other 
 purposes, to the furtherance of which he admitted 
 the right of Congress to grant lands, and the char- 
 itable purposes, in respect of which he denied the ex- 
 istence of any such right, President Pierce now boldly 
 faces the issue by taking ground that, in the matter 
 of the disposition of the public lands, Congress is to 
 be regarded as nothing more than the administrator 
 of an estate, and is to be governed by precisely the 
 same considerations as would act on the mind of any 
 other " prudent proprietor " in the administration of 
 
198 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 his own property. But now as to the question 01 the 
 President's consistency in the view he takes of what is 
 wise and what is foolish action on the part of his sup- 
 posed " prudent proprietor " ! 
 
 "Let us suppose [continues Senator Brown] that the 
 President was the prudent proprietor of a million of acres 
 of land in Wisconsin, and that he had appointed my friend, 
 the Senator from that State (Mr. Walker), his trustee, with 
 power to dispose of the lands as a prudent proprietor would 
 dispose of his own estate. The Senator sells a part at auc- 
 tion and some at private sale, and the President approves 
 his acts, saying, * That was prudent ; you had the power to 
 do that ! ' He gives some to a railroad, and the President 
 approves that. He gives some to a college, some to com- 
 mon schools, some to build a court-house, and some to drain 
 swamps. The President looks over the whole, and says, 
 * This is as a prudent proprietor would have done with his 
 own estate. You had the power to do all this, and I ap- 
 prove it.' Then the Senator gives a little to an insane asy- 
 lum. The President says, ' I must resist the deep sympa- 
 thies of my heart in behalf of the humane purposes of this 
 gift. It is not as a prudent proprietor would have managed 
 his own estate ; I disapprove it ! " 
 
 Indeed, very pertinently here might even the most 
 " prudent proprietor " have asked, in the name of the 
 insane, what poor old Shylock asked in the name of 
 his tribe : " Hath not a Jew eyes ? hath not a Jew 
 hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, pas- 
 sions ? " Do not five hundred insane patients in an 
 asylum, with their medical superintendents, nurses, 
 stewards, and cooks, eat, drink, and wear clothing? 
 Do they not mean an impulse at once given to open- 
 ing quarries, burning brick, and hewing timber ? Do 
 not they create an immediate market for the farmers' 
 hay, beef, milk, butter, eggs, grain, and vegetables ? 
 
THE PRESIDENTIAL VETO. 199 
 
 Do they not furnish abundant goods for transporta- 
 tion by railway, and promote business activity in mani- 
 f aid ways ? The number of " prudent proprietors " 
 who, in the exercise of the purest selfishness, would 
 voluntarily give away half of a tract of land to secure 
 the establishment on it of a great insane asylum, with 
 the sole end in view of enhancing the value of the 
 other half, would be quite as large as of those who 
 would do the like to secure the location on such lands 
 of a shoe or cotton factory. 
 
 Read, therefore, in the light of the powerful re- 
 joinders made to it, as well as in the light of the great 
 majorities by which Miss Dix's bill had been indorsed 
 by a Democratic Congress, the weak and vacillating 
 argument of President Pierce's veto message makes 
 it hard to account for his action on any t)ther ground 
 than that of personal idiosyncrasies of character and 
 opinion. It is the veto more of an individual than 
 of a great public official. 
 
 Politically, President Pierce was a man actuated by 
 an almost virulent hatred of everything savoring of 
 what he would term sentimental legislation. Elected 
 President on the avowed platform of a "Northern man 
 with Southern principles," he had, in the whole great 
 national issue between freedom and slavery, always in- 
 sisted that a deaf ear should be turned to anything 
 but the plea for the narrowest and baldest construc- 
 tion of the letter of the Constitution. The slightest 
 intrusion of humane sentiment into politics, and he 
 was at once on the verge of panic. Very naturally, 
 then, he flew wild on this occasion. Begin with doing 
 anything for the indigent insane, and soon will the 
 federal government have on its hands the support of 
 every sick man, every vagabond, every drunkard, in 
 
200 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 the land! And so, long habituated to the painful 
 duty of " resisting the deep sympathies of his heart in 
 behalf of the humane purposes " of the antislavery 
 agitation, he felt he must equally resist them in the 
 case of the 12,225,000 Acre Bill ; and, lest a worse 
 evil should come upon us, veto it outright. 
 
 None the less, though thus defeated in the end by 
 the (as she herself always bitterly felt) arbitrary act 
 of a mere individual, the congressional achievement 
 of Dorothea L. Dix, as narrated in the last four chap- 
 ters, will always stand out among the memorable 
 moral triumphs of history. Everything that human 
 foresight could provide for had been provided for by 
 her. Only, once again was to be justified the in- 
 scrutable experience, which in all ages has leveled to 
 the dust the* pride of man, " Nothing is certain but 
 the unforeseen ! " 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 IN ENGLAND AGAIN. 
 
 Miss Dix now resolved to seek entire rest and 
 change. Her forces seemed for the time being ut- 
 terly spent. She would sail for Europe, and once 
 there well, let Providence determine for her, for 
 she was too weary to plan for herself. At least she 
 would once again see her dear old English friends, 
 the Rathbones of Liverpool, whose devotion had, 
 eighteen years before, lifted her from the brink of the 
 grave. As strength permitted, she would visit the 
 asylums of Europe, to learn from them whatever 
 might be of future service at home. Along with these 
 undefined projects, there floated in her mind a vague 
 hope that she might get to Palestine. Religion, in 
 her mind, largely took the form of fervid personal 
 love for him who " went about doing good," and who 
 revealed through his own life that the "greatest of 
 all is he who is the servant of all ; " and she always 
 yearned to tread the soil once pressed by his blessed 
 feet. But beyond these vague purposes, all lay unde- 
 termined. 
 
 " Man never goes so far as when he knows not 
 whither he is going," was a maxim born of deep personal 
 experience in the at once mystical and practical mind 
 of Oliver Cromwell. In one shape or another, this 
 maxim has always expressed the deepest conviction 
 of natures in the same breath self-reliant and God- 
 
202 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 reliant. None know more clearly the limits of finite 
 ability ; and so, inevitably, are they led to look upon 
 the part they are called on to play in life, as the stout 
 ship captain looks upon his in working his vessel across 
 the Atlantic. His to man the rudder, trim the sails, 
 and follow the compass. But beyond these personal 
 duties lies the whole incalculable realm of calms and 
 gales, of unseen currents, of head winds and fair winds, 
 of fogs blotting out headland, sun, or stars. On these 
 must he patiently wait, meeting each as it comes, and 
 wrestling out of each the best furtherance he can 
 wring from it. Once again was the devout maxim to 
 justify itself in the case of this worn and well-nigh 
 heart-broken woman, who knew no more than that, 
 with a mind ever eager to do good as she found op- 
 portunity, she was perforce dropping her sacred work 
 in her native land, and vaguely reaching out after 
 rest and recuperation abroad. 
 
 Early in September, 1854, Miss Dix set sail for 
 Liverpool on the steamship "Arctic," the ill-fated ship 
 that, on the return voyage, went down with nearly all 
 on board. A touching incident connected with her 
 leaving home is narrated as follows, in the "New 
 York Daily Tribune " of September 11 of that year : 
 
 " I happened to be in the office of the American steam 
 packets when Miss Dix called to pay her passage. The 
 clerk handed her a receipt, but declined the money, saying 
 that Mr. E. K. Collins (the chief owner of the line) had 
 directed him to request her acceptance of the passage. 
 With much emotion. Miss Dix acknowledged her obligation 
 to Mr. Collins, adding that the sum thus returned to her 
 would enable her to carry out a plan she had much at heart. 
 
 " On board the ship, Miss Dix learned that she had yet 
 more for which to thank Mr. Collins. He had ordered 
 
IN ENGLAND AGAIN. 203 
 
 that no one else should be put in her stateroom, thus pre- 
 senting her with two passages. He was on board when 
 she arrived. She approached to tender her thanks, but, 
 taking her hands in his with an emotion that did him 
 honor, he said, 'The nation, madam, owes you a debt of 
 gratitude which it can never repay, and of which I, as an 
 individual, am only too happy to be thus privileged to mark 
 my sense.' 
 
 " Miss Dix could only reply with tears, for, as was evi- 
 dent to all who saw her, her nervous system is completely 
 prostrated. Could we expect it to be otherwise, in view of 
 her immense labors and her grievous disappointments ! " 
 
 In connection with this appreciative act of Mr. 
 E. K. Collins, it may be well here to record that for 
 many years now it had been the habit of railway com- 
 panies all over the Union to send Miss Dix yearly 
 passes, and of express companies to forward, free of 
 charge, all the multifarious matter she was unceas- 
 ingly collecting for prisons, hospitals, and insane 
 asylums. 
 
 There remains, of the correspondence with her friend 
 Miss Heath, a letter of Miss Dix, written on board 
 the "Arctic," which throws light on the ruling passion 
 of her life, while at the same time furnishing an 
 amusing comment on the old Latin adage, " Coelum, 
 non animum, mutant, qui trans mare currunt." A 
 favorite poem of hers one, indeed, that she copied 
 hundreds of times, and sent to friends all over the 
 United States had always been the little gem be- 
 ginning, 
 
 " Rest is not quitting the busy career." 
 
 That it had again been floating through her mind 
 during the voyage across the Atlantic, seems evident 
 enough from the tenor of her letter. 
 
204 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 "STEAMSHIP ARCTIC, September 11, 1854. 
 
 " DEAR ANNIE, Thus far, by the good providence of 
 God, we are safely on our voyage. I am now free from sea- 
 sickness, and, but for the roughness, I could easily employ 
 myself pretty constantly. I pass the time with such a measure 
 of listlessness as affords but few results that will tell for 
 others' good. However, I give you an example of my suc- 
 cess. I had observed on Sunday several parties betting on 
 the steamer's run. I waited till the bets were decided, and 
 then asked the winner for the winnings, which I put into 
 the captain's care for ' The Home for the Children of 
 Indigent Sailors ' in New York. To-night I am going to 
 ask each passenger for a donation for the same object, 
 as our thank offering for preservation thus far on our 
 voyage. I shall, I think, get above $150, or perhaps but 
 $100. 
 
 "I still regard my plans as doubtful. I have not the 
 slightest interest in going into France, or even Italy. In 
 contrast with the aim of my accustomed pursuits, it seems 
 the most trivial use of time. I should like to have some 
 person take my place who would fancy it, if I could receive 
 in exchange a good amount of working strength." 
 
 The incident of Miss Dix's thus quietly diverting 
 from the pocket of the winner the sum total of the 
 bets on the steamer's run, and transferring it into the 
 till of the Home for the Children of Indigent Sailors, 
 affords opportunity for a brief allusion to a charge 
 often brought against her, namely, that she followed 
 too literally the Apostle's injunction to be " instant in 
 season and out of season." From the variability of 
 human standards of judgment, it will inevitably follow 
 that here is a text which will always be differently 
 interpreted, whether by divines or laymen. " It is 
 entirely out of season," the winner of a dozen bets will 
 no doubt say, "it is entirely out of season to come 
 
IN ENGLAND AGAIN. 205 
 
 to me just when I have pocketed enough to buy a 
 whole box of cigars, and disagreeably remind me of 
 the wants of the children of indigent sailors, who are 
 not my lookout. I bet to win and smoke, not to re- 
 lieve human suffering ! " No doubt his friends would 
 to a man be of a like opinion. Meanwhile, the result 
 of an appeal to a higher tribunal, which should im- 
 partially weigh in the scale the claim to peace and 
 comfort of the successful better against the sore needs 
 of the children of shipwrecked sailors, might be a 
 reversal of the verdict. 
 
 For a month or six weeks after her arrival in 
 Liverpool, Miss Dix seems really to have sought rest 
 and change through seeing old friends and by various 
 excursions into interesting parts of the country. Still, 
 within a very few days of her setting foot on English 
 soil there were ominous signs of what would before 
 long inevitably follow. Thus to her friend, Miss 
 Heath, she writes as early as September 22 : 
 
 11 1 am still here with dear friends, much occupied with 
 charitable institutions and the meetings of the British Scien- 
 tific Association. All this tires me sadly, but I shall take 
 things easier in a week. It is my purpose to go to Scot- 
 land to see the hospitals in ten days." 
 
 Perhaps, to the average reader, the strict logical 
 connection between " taking things easier in a week " 
 and " going to Scotland to see the hospitals in ten 
 days " may not seem so obvious as apparently it did 
 to the writer. In reality the Scotch visit was to in- 
 volve Miss Dix in one of the most arduous undertak- 
 ings of her life. For a few weeks, however, it was 
 deferred, and the intervening time spent in a run 
 through Ireland, one delightful incident of which 
 
206 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 is described in a letter to Mrs. Rathbone, in Liver- 
 pool : 
 
 " BALLINASLOE, IRELAND, October 25, 1854. 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND, I could not sleep to-night before 
 writing a line to tell you how much I have wished you with me 
 the last fortnight, but especially for the past nine hours, from 
 seven last night to four this morning. I reached Parsontown 
 yesterday at two P. M. Sent a note of introduction to the 
 Castle, to Lord Rosse, asking permission to see his telescope. 
 In half an hour received an invitation to dinner at seven P. M. ; 
 and almost immediately his assistant, Mr. Mitchell, arrived 
 at the Parsontown Arms, to say that Lord Rosse had sent 
 him to conduct me to the Castle, in order that the instru- 
 ments might be seen by day, and the machinery. I reserve 
 all details till we meet, simply saying that I was swinging 
 in mid-air, sixty feet from the ground, at two in the morning, 
 yesterday, Lord Rosse, Captain King, Mr. Mitchell, and 
 Mr. Tirn, on a massive gallery, by turn looking through 
 the most magnificent telescope in the world." 
 
 To this Irish visit, and to the pleasure she was 
 equally enjoying in the scenery and society of Eng- 
 land, Miss Dix refers in a subsequent letter to Miss 
 Heath, of Boston, Mass. : 
 
 "LIVERPOOL, November 16, 1854. 
 
 " DEAR ANNIE, I am lately arrived from a tour over 
 Ireland, which consumed four entire weeks ; a period which 
 I shall always recall with lively interest. . . . Having no 
 great desire and no urgent motive to cross the Channel to 
 the Continent, I shall not do so except the climate here 
 prove too severe. . . . Few traveling parties would suit 
 my tastes or habits, and I as little should suit theirs. In 
 fact, the institutions of England do interest me, both liter- 
 ary, scientific, and humane, and in becoming familiar with 
 them I shall acquire much to remember with pleasure and 
 
IN ENGLAND AGAIN. 207 
 
 advantage during the year I propose to complete this side 
 the Atlantic. 
 
 " Nothing can be more distressing than the news from 
 the seat of war [the war in the Crimea], where violence and 
 the plague seem to spend their force on both armies. The 
 affliction of families where kindred are so exposed is most 
 painful, and leads to a distress involving serious conse- 
 quences, and increasing demands on hospitals for the insane. 
 There is little prospect of the soon coming of the kingdom 
 of heaven on earth, and the peace which is of Christ and 
 his doctrines. 
 
 " Romanism and Church of Englandisrn are waging as 
 hot a spiritual war as is maintained in the Crimea by physi- 
 cal force, and the heart of pity is petrified under the assaults 
 of bigotry and dogmatism. Social intercourse is interrupted 
 by religious animosities ; but where these disturbing influ- 
 ences do not penetrate, society is full of life and interest. 
 Conversation, rather than talking, engages thought and 
 measures time. One feels that something is gained on part- 
 ing with one's friends, which remains to supply new aliment 
 for reflection long after the circle which supplied it is dis- 
 solved." 
 
 Delightful, however, to Miss Dix as was this season 
 of change from the protracted labors of so many 
 years, and keenly as she enjoyed the opportunity of 
 giving a free breath to her intellectual nature through 
 contact with superior men and women, with something 
 worth hearing to say, it was a season of change des- 
 tined to be of short duration. Of her, emphatically 
 held true those words of Martineau : " High hearts 
 are never long without hearing some new call, some 
 distant clarion of God, even in their dreams ; and 
 soon they are observed to break up the camp of ease, 
 and start on some fresh march of faithful service." 
 The visit to Scotland was soon to bring to her lips the 
 
208 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X, 
 
 old familiar cry, " While such suffering remains unre 
 dressed, perish in me every thought of personal ease 
 or social delights ! " And yet, before proceeding to 
 narrate the great results which came of that visit to 
 Scotland, once again it becomes necessary as on a 
 previous occasion to turn back, and treat in distinct 
 episode another work of mercy Miss Dix had been 
 engaged in, the happy outcome of which now first saw 
 the light of day. Within a couple of months of her 
 landing in Liverpool, there came letters from home 
 which brought to her rejoicing heart the news of a 
 glorious success, the preparations for which she had 
 been laying in the past two years. The nature and 
 extent of this success will be unfolded in the next 
 chapter. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 SABLE ISLAND. 
 
 OF a letter from Hon. Hugh Bell to Miss Dix, 
 dated Halifax, August 4, 1853, the following words 
 may be recalled by the reader: "I called on the 
 Admiral or rather at the Admiralty House to 
 leave my card for the Earl of Ellsmere (as in duty 
 bound). The old Admiral met me at the door very 
 cordially, shook hands, and then said, 4 Where is Miss 
 Dix ? ' I replied, 4 She left for home yesterday. She 
 has been to Sable Island and back ! ' He exclaimed 
 in true sailor style, * She 's a gallant woman ! ' : 
 
 How gallant a woman the sequel to this visit was to 
 prove her not even the hearty old Admiral dreamed. 
 
 It so happened that while Miss Dix, in June, 1853, 
 was engaged in asylum work at St. John, Newfound- 
 land, there occurred a fearful storm, attended by ap- 
 palling shipwrecks which left a lasting impression on 
 her mind. She had gone through some perilous ex- 
 periences of her own on these exposed coasts, but from 
 a letter to her friend, Miss Heath, describing the fury 
 of the elements on this especial night, it was evident 
 that her whole nature had now been wrought to the 
 pitch of a fixed resolution to devise some efficient 
 practical means for the rescue of those at the mercy 
 of such terrible gales. Hence her visit to Sable 
 Island, so fitly named "The Graveyard of Ships." 
 The familiar maxim, "It is an ill wind that blows 
 
210 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX 
 
 nobody any good," was now destined to receive a fresh 
 commentary. 
 
 Sable Island, jutting far out into the western At- 
 lantic, lies in latitude 43 56' north, longitude 60 3' 
 west, some thirty miles southward from the easterly 
 end of Nova Scotia. It is a waste of desolate, wind- 
 swept sand hills, fringed with everlasting surf, har- 
 borless and shelterless on every side. 
 
 " The whole region for leagues around is a trap and a 
 snare. One sunken bar stretches sixteen miles away to the 
 northeast, another twenty-eight miles to the northwest. The 
 embrace of these long arms is death, for between them lie 
 alternate deeps and shoals, and when the sea is angry it 
 thunders and reverberates along a front of thirty miles, 
 extending twenty-eight miles to seaward. No lighthouse 
 throws its warning gleam beyond this seething death-line, 
 for stone structures will not stand upon these ever shifting 
 sands, arid wooden ones of sufficient height could not with- 
 stand the storms. The mariner drifts to his grave through 
 total gloom. The whole island bristles with stark timbers 
 and the de'bris of wrecks. Thus like the monster polypus 
 of ancient story, it lieth in the very track of commerce, 
 stretching out its huge tentacles for its prey, enveloped in 
 fogs and mists, and scarcely distinguishable from the gray 
 surf that unceasingly lashes its shores." 1 
 
 Official records set the number of known wrecks on 
 the island, occurring between 1830 and 1848, at six- 
 teen full-rigged ships, fourteen brigs, and thirteen 
 schooners. Besides these, the loss of large numbers 
 of unknown vessels, engulfed and never surviving to 
 tell their fatal story by more than a floating spar, 
 would have vastly farther swollen the tragic list. 
 
 The first authentic mention of Sable Island dates 
 
 1 "The Secrets of Sable Island," Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 
 December, 1866. 
 
SABLE ISLAND. 211 
 
 from the surviving companions of the ill-fated Sir 
 Humphrey Gilbert, the gallant and devout courtier of 
 Queen Elizabeth, who added so heroic a name to the 
 proud list of England's worthies. The occasion of his 
 search for the island, with his little fleet of three ves- 
 sels, is thus described in " Hakluyt's Voyages " : 
 
 " Sabla lyeth to the sea-ward of Cape Brittan, about 45 
 leagues, whither we were determined to go upon intelligence 
 we had of a Portingall, during our abode in St. John's, who 
 was himself present when the Portingals about 30 years 
 past did put into the same island both neat and swine to 
 breed, which were since exceedingly multiplied. The dis- 
 tance between Cape Race and Cape Britton is 100 leagues, 
 in which navigation we spent 8 days, having the wind many 
 times indifferent good, but could never attain sight of any 
 land all that time, seeing we were hindered by the current. 
 At last we fell into such flats and dangers that hardly any 
 of us escaped, where nevertheless we lost the [ship] Admiral 
 with all the men and provision, not knowing certainly the 
 place. 
 
 " Contrary to the mind of the expert Master Coxe, on 
 Wednesday the 27th August they bore up towards the land, 
 those in the doomed ship, the Admiral, continually sounding 
 trumpets and drums, whilst strange voices from the deep 
 scared the helmsman from his post on board the frigate. 
 Thursday the 28th the wind arose and blew vehemently 
 from the south and east, bringing withal rain and thick mist, 
 that we could not see a cable length before us, and betimes 
 in the morning we were altogether run and folded in amongst 
 flats and sands, amongst which we found flats and deeps 
 every three or four ship's length. Immediately tokens 
 were given to the Admiral to cast about to seaward, which, 
 being the greater ship and of burden 120 tons, was per- 
 forrnost upon the beach, keeping so ill watch that they knew 
 not the danger before they felt the same too late to recover 
 
212 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 it, for presently the Admiral struck a-ground, and had soon 
 after her stern and hinder parts beaten in pieces." 
 
 Thus beginning the record it has ever since main- 
 tained, such was the disastrous reception given by 
 Sable Island, August 28, 1583, to Sir Humphrey Gil- 
 bert, who with great difficulty escaped with his two re- 
 maining vessels, only soon after himself to founder in 
 the terrible gale off the Grand Banks, in which, 
 ' standing at the helm, sorely wounded in one foot, 
 and Bible in hand," he cheerily shouted to his com- 
 panions on the sole surviving vessel, " We are as near 
 to heaven by sea as by land ! " 
 
 Later on, in 1598, Sable Island was made a penal 
 colony for convicts from the French settlements in 
 Arcadia, forty of them having been landed there by 
 the Marquis de la Roche, and left to their fate. It 
 was found seven years later that only twelve had sur- 
 vived to tell the story of their sufferings. Later, as 
 increasing commerce added to the tale of wrecks, the 
 island became the abode of desperate men, who as 
 piratical wreckers gave it such a name that it was 
 reputed better for mariners to be swallowed up by the 
 sea than to escape only to be murdered on land. Fi- 
 nally, in 1802, after the wreck of the British trans- 
 port, Princess Amelia, " having l on board the furni- 
 ture of Prince Edward, with recruits, officers, and 
 servants to the number of two hundred, all of whom 
 perished, though it is supposed that some reached 
 shore, and were murdered by the pirates," the Pro- 
 vincial Legislature took action. A relief station was 
 established, the wreckers were driven off the island, 
 and a superintendent, with a crew of four men, placed 
 
 1 Sable Island, by J. Bernard Gilpin, B. A., M. D., M. R. C. S. 
 Halifax, 1858. 
 
SABLE ISLAND. 2 13 
 
 in charge. From step to step, these humane pro- 
 visions were increased, until in 1836 the annual fund 
 was raised to .2,000, stanch buildings were erected, 
 and new apparatus added. Such, then, is the ill- 
 omened, though gradually ameliorating, history of 
 Sable Island in the past. 
 
 It is certainly a striking commentary on the change 
 that has come over the world on the subject of " wo- 
 man's sphere " and " woman's appropriate work," 
 since the days when lago summed them up in such 
 unflattering terms, that now an overtaxed and suffer- 
 ing representative of the sex should see it in the light 
 of imperative duty to make a voyage to this so dreaded 
 island, to study on the. spot whether something more 
 effective could not be devised for the safety of those 
 exposed to such frightful perils. Why her imper- 
 ative duty? Were there not the home government 
 and the provincial government; were there not ad- 
 mirals and captains in plenty ; were there not the rich 
 shipping merchants of Halifax, Liverpool, New York, 
 and Boston, whose argosies lay stranded at every 
 point of those storm-lashed shores? And she herself? 
 Surely, with hospitals to look after in twenty States, 
 12,225,000 Acre Bills to engineer through Congress, 
 and two new asylums actually in hand in Nova Scotia 
 and Newfoundland, might she not guiltlessly have 
 washed her hands of Sable Island? No, thither must 
 she go, to study the problem on the spot, to examine 
 into every detail of the life-saving apparatus used, 
 and to leave behind her, as she scoured every part 
 of the island on one of the ragged little wild ponies 
 that breed there, " the character of an intrepid horse- 
 man." 
 
 Making Sable Island, landing there for a stay of 
 
214 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 several days, and then getting away again, is an un- 
 dertaking always involving a certain amount of risk. 
 There is no harbor, and even on the north, the more 
 sheltered shore,' vessels have to lie off at a consider- 
 able distance, ready at the first sign of an unfavorable 
 change of wind to put out to sea. Fortunately for 
 the purposes Miss Dix had in view, her visit occurred 
 at a time especially good for her, though ill omened 
 for others. It so chanced that a wreck actually oc- 
 curred during the two days of her stay on the island, 
 that of a fine new vessel, the " Guide," with a cargo 
 for Labrador. She went ashore on the south side ; 
 no storm, but a dense fog prevailing, in which she be- 
 came bewildered till she found herself within the fatal 
 arms of the sand polypus. 
 
 As the weather remained calm, all lives were saved 
 by the surf boats. The wreck, however, enabled Miss 
 Dix to secure a vivid object lesson of what could and 
 what could not be done by the force of men and char- 
 acter of apparatus on hand. Oddly enough, more- 
 over, an incident occurred which united in a kind of 
 dramatic unity a romantic blending of her old mission 
 in behalf of the insane with her new in behalf of the 
 sailor. It is thus described in a letter from Mr. E. 
 Merriam, of New York, who later on rendered invalu- 
 able service to her scheme for equipping the island 
 with proper lifeboats and appliances. 
 
 " The ship, was abandoned by all but the captain. He 
 had become a raving maniac, and would not leave. Miss 
 Dix rode to the beach on horseback, as the last boat landed 
 from the iK-fated ship, and learned the sad fate of the com- 
 mander, who, the sailors said, was a kind-hearted man. 
 She plead with them to return to the wreck and bring him 
 on shore, and to bind him if it was necessary for his safety. 
 
SABLE ISLAND. 215 
 
 They obeyed her summons, and soon were again on the 
 beach, with their captain bound hand and foot. She loos- 
 ened the cords, took him by the arm and led him to a boat- 
 house built for the shipwrecked, and there by kind words 
 calmed his mind and persuaded him to thank the sailors for 
 saving his life ; she trusted that rest and nourishing food 
 would restore him to his reason." 
 
 Scarcely back in the United States, Miss Dix set to 
 work with her usual energy. She had found the boats 
 and the life-saving apparatus at Sable Island far be- 
 hind the requirements of the day. There was no mor- 
 tar for throwing a line across a wrecked vessel, no 
 provision of cars and breeches-buoys. Above all, the 
 boats were clumsy and unsafe, utterly incapable of the 
 perilous services demanded of them. Applying at 
 once to her friends among the merchants of Boston, 
 New York, and Philadelphia, she was quickly pro- 
 vided with funds for building boats of the most ap- 
 proved modern construction and ordering a full equip- 
 ment of the newest inventions in apparatus. 
 
 August 20, 1853, on reaching Boston, Miss Dix at 
 once sought communication with such experts in nau- 
 tical matters as Captain Robert B. Forbes, then 
 chairman of the Humane Society of Boston, who 
 quickly responded to her appeal. Captain Forbes was 
 a notable instance of that noble breed of American 
 sailors and merchants, who at one period carried the 
 fame of their country for courage, enterprise, and sa- 
 gacity all round the globe. Full of public spirit, he 
 had on a previous occasion taken command of the 
 " Jamestown " when she was sent out laden with corn 
 for the relief of famine-stricken Ireland, as equally he 
 had founded the Sailors' Snug Harbor for disabled 
 seamen in Quincy, Mass. Nothing bearing on the 
 
216 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 questions either of building stanch ships, or caring 
 for the welfare of their crews, or lighting exposed 
 points for their guidance, or saving their lives when 
 the hour of disaster struck, failed to appeal to his in- 
 telligence and humanity. 
 
 The letter Miss Dix addressed to Captain Forbes, 
 immediately after arriving in Boston, bears the mark 
 of a certain breathless haste, as though no time were 
 to be lost : 
 
 " BOSTON, August 20, 1853. 
 
 " Miss Dix's compliments to Mr. Forbes, and wishes to 
 consult him on several questions relative to marine interests, 
 wherein his superior judgment and assistance can assist her 
 own aims. Will Mr. Forbes oblige Miss Dix by calling at 
 the residence of Charles Hayward, Esq., No. 9 Franklin 
 Place, at the earliest hour his convenience will allow, on 
 Wednesday morning, August 21st ? " 
 
 It is not surprising, accordingly, to find in Captain 
 Forbes's journal, as early as September 16, an entry 
 to the effect : 
 
 "Trying experiments with life-preservers and boat. I 
 went into the river with a neighbor to show Miss Dix how 
 to capsize and how to right a boat. We invited her to throw 
 herself over, and permit us to save her, but, as she had no 
 change of clothes, she declined." 
 
 By the middle of November matters had gone at 
 such a pace that, after personally superintending the 
 building of the " Victoria " in Boston, Captain Forbes 
 was able to write as follows of this boat and of the 
 others that had been constructed in New York : 
 
 "Miss D. L. Dix, 
 
 " My dear Lady : Your several notes are received. 
 The last bears date, Buffalo, 12th hist., and, as far as I can 
 
SABLE ISLAND. 217 
 
 make out (you do write a hard hand for a business woman *), 
 asks for an answer to New Jersey and Trenton. Here it is. 
 
 " The boat is in Boston, and being fitted with her floats, 
 some of which being smaller than ordered. I am putting in 
 copper air-tight cases. All will, I trust, be ready for ship- 
 ment in four or five days. 
 
 " Do not, I beg of you, say anything about obligation to 
 me. It is me, and the rest of us merchants, whom you have 
 laid under obligations. I made a long journey to Williams- 
 burg, where your New York boats are lying in the shop of 
 Francis. They are good boats, though rather heavy, and I 
 predict that the i Victoria ' will be the queen of the fleet." 
 " I am very truly yours, 
 
 " R. B. FORBES." 
 
 By the 25th of November the boats and outfits 
 were completed, the three boats built in New York be- 
 ing publicly exhibited on Wall Street, and attracting 
 great attention by their beauty and strength. It was 
 Miss Dix's desire to forward the entire little fleet by 
 a sailing vessel to Halifax, thence, as opportunity of- 
 fered, to be transferred to Sable Island. To this plan 
 Captain Forbes strongly objected as " putting too 
 many eggs in one basket," and insisting on sending the 
 Boston boat, the " Victoria," to Halifax by a Cunard 
 steamer. She was accordingly thus forwarded, accom- 
 panied by the following letter from Miss Dix : 
 
 1 Miss Dix's handwriting 1 was at once the amusement and the 
 despair of her correspondents, who were often driven to their wit's 
 ends in vain attempts to decipher it. The trouble began back in her 
 school-keeping days, when overstrain added writer's cramp to her 
 numerous disabilities. Things grew worse in this respect when so 
 vast a correspondence was thrust upon her by her asylum work. In- 
 deed, her biography could hardly have been written without an 
 amount of serious preliminary study of her manuscripts, fairly equal 
 to that of Champollion in his preparation for deciphering the hiero- 
 glyphics of Egypt. 
 
218 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DLX. 
 
 " NEW YORK, November 28, 1853. 
 
 " To His EXCELLENCY, SIR JOHN GASPARD LE MARCHANT, 
 Lieut. Governor of Nova Scotia, etc., K. C. B., eic. 
 
 "I have the honor and pleasure cf consigning by this 
 writing to your excellency a lifeboat, 'The Victoria of 
 Boston,' for the use of Sable Island, and which with its 
 appendages is a gift to me for this sole purpose from Hon. 
 Abbot Lawrence, Hon. Jonathan Philipps, Col. T. H. Per- 
 kins, Hon. William Appleton, R. C. Harper, R. B. Forbes, 
 and G. N. Upton, Esq., all of Boston. 
 
 " To Mr. Forbes, who for courage and knowledge in 
 nautical affairs has a wide reputation, I am especially 
 obliged, since his judgment and experience have assisted me 
 in effecting the completion of my wishes in this business in 
 a satisfactory manner. . . . 
 
 " I have the honor to be your Excellency's sincere friend, 
 with sentiments of respect and esteem, 
 
 "D. L. Dix. 
 
 " P. S. The Boston boat will very soon be followed by 
 the New York and Philadelphia boats, with the outfits." 
 
 The brig "Eleanora," destined to carry the New 
 York boats, sailed November 27th. On her were 
 shipped by Miss Dix two surf boats, one lifeboat, two 
 boat wagons, one life car, the mortar, with fit ammuni- 
 tion, coils of manilla rope, etc. The following letter 
 accompanied them, a letter that shows the varied na- 
 ture of the interests in behalf of Sable Island, with 
 which Miss Dix's mind was filled : 
 
 " NEW YORK, November 29, 1889. 
 
 " His EXCELLENCY SIR GEORGE SEYMOUR, K. C. B., etc. 
 " When I was in Nova Scotia last summer, an opportu- 
 nity occurred of visiting Sable Island. I found it deficient 
 in libraries, opening a source of amusement and instruction 
 to isolated mariners, stationed there, and that there was 
 neither a lighthouse for warning, nor lifeboats for rescue in 
 
SABLE ISLAND. 219 
 
 the event of perilous shipwrecks. The first and last de- 
 ficiencies I was confident I could by myself and my friends 
 at home supply, but the second the lighthouse I could 
 only hope to see established through your Excellency's in- 
 fluence, met and sustained by the gubernatorial authority of 
 Sir Gaspard le Marchant. . . . The opinions of civilians 
 differ, but as they suffer none of the exposures and en- 
 counter none of the dangers of maritime life, I presume 
 they will concede the decision to those who unite prudence 
 with courage, and who, while they unshrinkingly meet 
 perils, do not despise aids for avoiding destruction. I shall 
 regard elaborate argument unseasonable in presenting this 
 subject to your excellency for cordial support ; and, in the 
 confidence which your reputation for humanity and energy 
 inspire, leave this work in your hands for early accomplish- 
 ment. 
 
 " I may inform you that a library of several hundred 
 volumes, the joint gift of some of my friends and several 
 liberal booksellers in Boston, has already been forwarded 
 to Halifax, to constitute a Mariner's Library for Sable 
 Island. ' 
 
 "In view of supplying lifeboats to meet a necessity, in 
 a spirit of ' neighborly good will and fraternal kindness,' I 
 asked of a few of my mercantile friends in the cities of 
 Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, a sufficient subscrip- 
 tion for four first-class lifeboats, a life car, with mortar, 
 cables, trucks, harnesses, etc. ... I have named the Phila- 
 delphia boat, * The Grace Darling,' the New York boats, 
 severally, ' The Reliance,' and ' The Samaritan,' the car, 
 'The Rescue,' and the Boston boat, 'The Victoria of Bos- 
 ton.' ... I shall be gratified if you will do me the honor 
 of inspecting them. I already have seen them conquer the 
 breakers in a stormy sea. . . . 
 
 " I have, your excellency, the honor to be with sincere 
 respect and high appreciation, your excellency's friend, 
 
 "D. L. Dix." 
 
220 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 Alas ! the warning of Captain R. B. Forbes, in re- 
 gard to " too many eggs in one basket," was destined 
 to prove prophetic. For a long time nothing was 
 heard of the brig " Eleanora," till at last came a letter 
 to Miss Dix from her stanch friend in hospital work, 
 Hon. Hugh Bell, which brought sad tidings. 
 
 " HALIFAX, January 16, 1854. 
 
 " DEAR MADAM, Perhaps before this reaches you, the 
 newspapers or the shippers will have informed you of the 
 fate of the lifeboats. The brig ' Eleanora,' on board which 
 they were shipped, was driven ashore, in the tempestuous 
 weather we have lately had, at a place called Cranberry 
 Head, about nine miles from Yarmouth, and is a total 
 wreck. 1 telegraphed to Yarmouth to ascertain respecting 
 the boats. The reply is, ' One totally lost (went to sea), 
 one badly broken, other, in hold, uncertain, buoys, etc., 
 I believe, saved.' Thus your benevolent intentions, and 
 those of your generous friends, are for the present frus- 
 trated." 
 
 The disappointment was a sad one to Miss Dix, 
 who constitutionally liked to see everything doing its 
 own appointed work, and did not at all enjoy the 
 reversed situation of a life-saving outfit that needed to 
 be saved itself. However, she at once gave directions 
 to have the two broken boats, as well as the one that 
 had gone to sea and was later picked up, together 
 with all the accoutrements, sent back to New York 
 for thorough repair ; at the same time issuing orders 
 that "The Victoria" should remain in Halifax till 
 the whole little fleet should be ready. Long delays in 
 receiving and reshipping ensued, so that it was not 
 until the ensuing October that, in two detachments, 
 the entire outfit was landed on Sable Island. 
 
 Now, in a romantic drama to be entitled " The 
 
SAULE ISLAND. 221 
 
 Grace Darling," and sensationally worked up to thrill 
 the spectators, and emphasize the sure reward of vir- 
 tue, the writer wotdd no doubt extemporize a ship- 
 wreck to glorify, within twenty-four hours of its ad- 
 vent, so humanely-sent a means of rescue, and to give 
 it a chance to make immediate display of its heroic 
 quality. Not always, however, is poetic justice con- 
 fined to the stage. Strange to relate, in the night 
 of October 27 within a few days only after the 
 arrival of the first three boats, and a day only after 
 that of " The Eeliance," which proved the real hero 
 of the scene a shipwreck, anH a frightful one, did 
 occur. It was that of the ship " Arcadia," Captain 
 William Jordan, from Antwerp, for New York, with 
 one hundred and forty-seven passengers on board, and 
 a crew of twenty-one men. 
 
 The first tidings of the behavior of the little fleet 
 were sent Miss Dix then, as has already been seen, 
 in England by Hon. Hugh Bell, of Halifax, N. S. 
 
 " DEAR MADAM, The very day after the arrival of the 
 largest lifeboat (the ' Reliance ') at Sable Island, the oth- 
 ers having been, together with the attached cars and wag- 
 ons, previously forwarded, a large American ship from Ant- 
 werp, with upwards of one hundred and sixty passengers, 
 men, women, and children, was cast upon one of the sand- 
 banks off the northeast end of the island, and lurched so 
 that the sea beat into her and rendered all chance of escape 
 by the efforts of the people on board quite hopeless. The 
 sea was so heavy, and the weather so boisterous, that none 
 of the island's boats could live in it. To reach the wreck 
 from the station was over twenty miles ; your wagons thus 
 came into use. Your l Reliance ' rode over the waves, as 
 the sailors said, like a duck, and with her and two of your 
 smaller boats, the * Samaritan ' and the ' Rescue,' the whole 
 of the passengers were safely landed ; poor things, almost 
 
222 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 in a state of nudity, not being able to save anything from 
 the ship. Will you not rejoice at this result of your bounty ? 
 Including the crew, one hundred and eighty human beings 
 were saved by the means thus opportunely, and may I not 
 add providentially, furnished through your care. 
 
 " I am very truly your friend and obedient servant, 
 
 "HUGH BELL." 
 
 This letter from Hon. Hugh Bell was, a few weeks 
 later, followed by a letter to himself from Capt. M. 
 D. McKeima, Superintendent of the Relief Station at 
 Sable Island, which ^ives farther particulars. 
 
 "SABLE ISLAND, December 6, 1854. 
 
 " DEAR SIR, The ' Arcadia ' struck on the S. E. side 
 of the N. E. bar of this island at 6 P. M., on the 26th kist., 
 in a dense fog, and the wind blowing strong from S. S. W. 
 As soon as we got the report on the following morning, we 
 started at once for the wreck with the largest lifeboat, and 
 found the ship lying about two hundred yards from the 
 beach, head to the southward, settled deep in the sand, and 
 listed seaward with her lee side under water, main and 
 mizzen masts gone by the deck, and a tremendous sea run- 
 ning and sweeping over her bows. . . . 
 
 " We immediately launched the Francis lifeboat ' Reli- 
 ance,' when the boat's crew took their stations, and with 
 the mate started for the wreck, and after contending for 
 some considerable time with tremendous seas, strong cur- 
 rents, and high winds, they got alongside the wreck, and 
 during the afternoon made six trips to the wreck, and 
 brought on shore about eighty persons, large and small. Two 
 other attempts were made to reach the wreck, but the oars 
 and thole pins were broken by the violence of the sea, and 
 the boat had to return to the beach. An attempt was made 
 to send a warp from the ship to the shore, but the current 
 ran at such a rate that it could not be accomplished. When 
 night came on, and we had to haul up our boat, the cries 
 
SABLE ISLAND. 223 
 
 from those left on the wreck were truly heart-rending. In the 
 hurry of work, families had been separated, and when those 
 on shore heard the cries of those on the wreck at seeing the 
 boats hauled up, a scene was witnessed that may be imag- 
 ined, but cannot be described. I walked slowly from the 
 place, leading my horse, till by the roaring of the sea, the 
 whistling of the winds, and the distance I had traveled, 
 their doleful cries could not be heard. . . . 
 
 " Next morning, we launched the lifeboat as soon as it 
 was clear enough to see how to work her, and by 10 A. M. 
 we had both crew and passengers safely landed. . . . The 
 ship was broken in a thousand pieces on the night of the 
 29th, and only a few packages of cargo and some small 
 things of ship's materials are saved. Captain Jordan was 
 knocked down by a sea and very severely cut and bruised, 
 while our boat was making her second trip, which deprived 
 us of his advice and assistance. The mate, Mr. Collamore, 
 acted nobly throughout the whole business. . . . The Island 
 men exerted themselves to the utmost, and the boat's crew 
 nobly stuck to their boat, and declined accepting the offer of 
 the mate to give them a spell with some of the ship's crew. 
 The Francis metallic lifeboat ' Reliance ' has done what no 
 other boat could do, that I have ever seen. It was a fear- 
 ful time, yet the boats' crews each took their stations read- 
 ily, and soon showed that they felt the ' Reliance ' to be 
 worthy of her name. 
 
 " I am sure that our benevolent friend, Miss Dix, will feel 
 herself more than compensated for her great exertions in be- 
 half of Sable Island Establishment, when she becomes ac- 
 quainted with what we have already done through the 
 means she furnished, and we, with many others, have rea- 
 son to thank God that her good works have been felt on 
 Sable Island. For my own part, I shall think of her with 
 feelings of gratitude while memory lasts. 
 
 " Your obedient servant, M. D. McKENNA. 
 
 " To THE HONORABLE HUGH BELL, 
 
 Chairman, Board of Works, Halifax." 
 
224 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 Congratulatory letters from home friends, and 
 friends in England, now came thick and fast to Miss 
 Dix, among which one has been preserved, which 
 gives so sprightly and amusing a picture of interna- 
 tional rivalry in acts of mercy, as to make it quite as 
 worthy of record as the majority of the public reports 
 of international rivalries in yacht racing or even in 
 pugilistic prowess. The letter was written by Miss 
 Anna Gurney of the well known Quaker family, illus- 
 trated in the annals of philanthropy by such names as 
 those of Elizabeth Fry, John Joseph Gurney, and Sir 
 Fowell Buxton. To bring out its point, a few words 
 in relation to Miss Gurney are necessary. 
 
 Miss Anna Gurney says the "Gentleman's Mag- 
 azine " in an obituary of her written several years 
 later was a life-long invalid. 
 
 '* At ten months old, she was attacked with a paralytic 
 affection, which deprived her forever of the use of her lower 
 limbs. She passed through her busy, active, and happy life, 
 without ever having been able to stand or move. As her 
 appetite for knowledge displayed itself at an early age, her 
 parents procured for her the instruction of a tutor whose 
 only complaint was that he could not keep pace with her 
 eager desire and rapid acquisitions. She thus learned suc- 
 cessively Latin, Greek, and Hebrew ; after which she be- 
 took herself to the Teutonic languages, her proficiency in 
 which was soon marked by translation of the Anglo-Saxon 
 Chronicle, printed in 1819. 
 
 " After the one irreparable loss to her of the sister of Sir 
 Fowell Buxton, in 1839, she continued to inhabit her beau- 
 tiful cottage of Northrepps, near Comer, finding consolation 
 and happiness in a ceaseless round of beneficence. She 
 had procured, at her own expense, one of Captain Manby's 
 apparatus for saving the lives of seamen on that most dan- 
 gerous coast ; and in case of great emergency and peril, she 
 
SABLE ISLAND. 225 
 
 caused herself to be carried down to the beach, and, from 
 the chair in which she wheeled herself, directed all meas- 
 ures for rescue. We cannot conceive a more touching and 
 elevating picture than that of the infirm woman, dependent 
 even for the least movement on artificial help, coining from 
 the luxurious comfort of her lovely cottage to face the fury 
 of the storm, that she might hope to save some from per- 
 ishing." 
 
 Surely, then, if ever a brave-hearted woman was en- 
 titled to her fair share of men, women, and children 
 snatched from the maw of the devouring sea, Miss 
 Anna Gurney was that woman ! And now there had 
 suddenly loomed np a rival American sister, who had 
 secured one hundred and eighty at a single haul of the 
 net. The virulence of Miss Gurney's envious feelings 
 will be readily perceived from the following letter : 
 
 " MY DEAR Miss Dix, I congratulate you intensely ! 
 I never heard of such a success, and to have it exactly the 
 day after your boats arrived ! I can only tell you, I have 
 been on the look-out these thirty years, and tolerably sharp, 
 too, I hope, and never got so much as a pussy-cat to my own 
 share of a wreck, though I have had plenty to do with crews 
 and dogs and cats, too. But I never had really the joy of 
 being the instrument of deliverance, as you may truly feel 
 yourself. . . . Once, indeed, my servant threw a rocket-line 
 over a stranded vessel, and my gang of fishermen were very 
 indignant that the men would not give me the honor and 
 glory of letting themselves be dragged through the breakers 
 upon the sand, but would wait to come ashore comfortably, 
 in a lifeboat, which just then came in sight. So, in fact, I 
 have had no luck at all, though, as I say, I have been gap- 
 ing for it like an oyster these five and thirty years." 
 
 Immediately on receipt of the news of the rescue of 
 the passengers and crew of the " Arcadia," Miss Dix 
 acted with her usual thoughtfulness in calling the at- 
 
226 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 tention of the Mariners' Royal Benevolent Society 
 to the gallant conduct of Captain McKenna and his 
 men, and in procuring for them, by unanimous vote, 
 the gold medal of the corporation for the chief, and 
 the silver medal for each of those serving under him. 
 The vote of the Royal Benevolent Society bears date 
 August 8, 1855, though it was not until October 1 
 that Miss Dix received and forwarded to Sable Island, 
 from Vevay in Switzerland, the medals. They were 
 accompanied by a letter full of the admiration of a 
 heroic woman for brave and self-sacrificing men. 
 
 " VEVAY, SWITZERLAND, October 1, 1855. 
 " To CAPTAIX MCKENNA, Sable Island : 
 
 " Sir, I have the great satisfaction of communicating 
 to you and the brave men under your command, at Sable 
 Island, a copy of the documents which I have this week re- 
 ceived from the secretary of the Mariners' Royal Benevolent 
 Society, London, to whom I communicated the facts of your 
 unhesitating performance of the sacred duty resting upon 
 you in giving succor to all ships and persons in distress, by 
 reason of peril through storm and wreck, upon the danger- 
 ous bars of Sable Island. 
 
 " No rewards can measure with such services, and no wages 
 recompense them. Life is hazarded to save life, and selfish 
 considerations are absorbed in exertions to rescue those 
 whose sole human dependence rests on your heroism and 
 effective action. Yet, I believe you will highly value the 
 bestowal of the gold and silver medals of the Royal Benevo- 
 lent Society, unanimously awarded, affording, as it does, evi- 
 dence that your services in a lonely and desolate island are 
 honorably estimated, and gratefully recorded. I beg you 
 will convey to the seamen serving under you the expression 
 of my confidence in the continued discharge of their duty, 
 and my prayer that, as you and they in the hour which tries 
 mens' souls have given help to the helpless, so you all in 
 
SABLE ISLAND. 227 
 
 your time of need, when more than human strength is 
 wanted, may find that succor which shall guide your Life 
 Boat safely into the Haven of Salvation, and land you with 
 joy upon the shores of Eternal Life. 
 
 " Your Friend, D. L. Dix." 
 
 Neither Capt. William Jordan nor First Mate Dex- 
 ter Collamore were British subjects, and so could 
 not come in for their share in the distribution of 
 medals. But as the first of these had stood bravely 
 by his ship and passengers till disabled by the blow of 
 a wave, and the second, on taking command, had 
 proved himself thoroughly self-possessed, Miss Dix 
 constituted herself a " Royal Benevolent Society " in 
 their behalf, sending to each a token of her personal 
 esteem, and receiving from each a grateful and sailor- 
 like reply. Near the same date came also a letter 
 from the mother of one of the shipwrecked crew, 
 which gives a glimpse of what must have been the 
 spirit of thanksgiving in many a scattered house- 
 hold. 
 
 11 CASTINE, MAINE, March 6. 1855. 
 " MY FRIEND AND BENEFACTRESS, Miss Dix, 
 
 " You will not be surprised at this address when I tell 
 you that my son was one of the crew of the ship i Arcadia,' 
 saved through your instrumentality. While our hearts as- 
 cend, I trust, to our Heavenly Preserver with grateful emo- 
 tions, it is fitting that we should express to you our thanks 
 and kind regards, with the hope that your benevolent ef- 
 forts for elevating character and saving life may be crowned 
 with success, and that the blessing of many ready to perish 
 may come upon you. 
 
 " Affectionately, LUCY S. ADAMS." 
 
 As usual with Miss Dix, this happy result of her 
 efforts in behalf of Sable Island, seems to have acted 
 
228 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 simply as an incentive to farther activity. Indeed, 
 the same held true of the spirit of the gallant little 
 fleet, which again and again distinguished itself ; 
 while throughout the remainder of her own life, she 
 kept up an unfailing interest in the life-saving sta- 
 tions all along the coasts of the United States, sup- 
 plying them with libraries, and keeping herself ever 
 on the alert to learn and communicate anything new 
 bearing on their fullest equipment for their work. It 
 is, therefore, perfectly characteristic of her to find, 
 within a few days of the receipt in England of the 
 glad tidings, an entry in her journal which reads : " I 
 have been trying lifeboats and visiting ship-yards, 
 listening to lectures on the variation of the compass, 
 also much interested in a project for supporting light- 
 houses in loose soils by screws that work down deep 
 into the sands." Indeed, few persons ever indorsed 
 more heartily than she the Cromwellian maxim, " Fear 
 God, and keep your powder dry." Impregnable was 
 her reliance on God, but never on a God who was not 
 jealous of the glory of his own laws, or who would 
 ever consent to bestow the crown of victory on saints 
 presumptuous enough to serve the artillery of heaven 
 with damp gunpowder. It was, then, only a piece of 
 poetic justice, in consonance with Miss Dix's inflex- 
 ible law of life, that, in the terrible gale at Sable 
 Island it should have been the " Reliance " that " rode 
 the waves like a duck," and proved herself " Queen 
 of the Fleet." 
 

 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE AMERICAN INVADER. 
 
 AFTER brief allusion to the incidents connected 
 with Miss Dix's arrival in England, October, 1854, it 
 became necessary, as has been seen, to turn backward 
 for a while in order to narrate consecutively the Sable 
 Island episode in her career, the news of the happy 
 success of which reached her a month or more after 
 her landing in Liverpool. At that time we left her 
 "sadly tired," as she confessed, but resolving to 
 " take things easier in a week," and, by way of this, 
 proposing in " ten days to go to Scotland to see the 
 hospitals." Her immediate purpose, however, seems 
 to have been changed in favor of three weeks of recu- 
 perative travel in Ireland. 
 
 Indeed, it now fairly began to look as though the 
 overtaxed woman really intended to give herself a 
 period of protracted rest, and would, moreover, have 
 keenly enjoyed it, had not events soon occurred which 
 were to awaken once again the master-passion of her 
 nature and throw it into flaming activity. Thus, as 
 late even as December 8, 1854, she is found writing 
 to her friend, Miss Heath, in America : 
 
 " I could not but smile at your idea of my visiting the 
 prisons in Italy, an idea, certainly, that you have the sole 
 merit of suggesting, for it had not occurred to me, for any 
 purpose, to penetrate into those places of so many bitter 
 memories and horrible sufferings. What should I gain, or 
 
230 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 what would others gain, by my passage through those 
 dreary dungeons and under the Piombini ? Where I do visit 
 prisons, it is where I have before me a rational object and 
 a clear purpose. As I write, the little birds are singing 
 1 merrily, cheerily ' below my windows, the flowers on my 
 table yield a sweet fragrance, the lauristinas open their buds 
 and flowers along the walks, and the grass is a vivid 
 green." 
 
 From the tenor of the above letter, it would seem 
 that Miss Dix's nature was imperfectly sympathetic 
 with the order of sensibilities which lead the average 
 American tourist to feel that a visit to Venice would 
 hardly be worth the discomforts of a voyage across 
 the Atlantic, unless it yielded an hour, at least, of the 
 luxury of tears with poor Silvio Pellico, under the 
 lead roofs of the Doge's palace. True, Silvio Pellico 
 has now these many years been dead, and, it is 
 devoutly to be hoped, in bliss with the saints in 
 heaven. Still was he not once a poor, languishing 
 prisoner ? This singular contrast between the imme- 
 diate practical objects for which sentimental tourists 
 effusively explore prisons and chambers of torture, 
 and those which actuate the Howards and Frys in 
 their grim fight with groans, curses, typhus fever, 
 and broken idiocy, is one frequently noted between 
 amateurs and professionals in philanthropy. 
 
 By the 26th of February, however, it is evident 
 that Miss Dix is " taking things more easily " after 
 the wonted fashion of her last fifteen years. She has 
 gone to Scotland, and is yielding herself to the line of 
 least resistance as obediently as the gentle brook, 
 only, in this case, the brook is a mountain torrent that 
 finds the natural outlet to its heroic temper in forcing 
 its way through barriers of granite. The first letter 
 
THE AMERICAN INVADER. 231 
 
 which brings this out is addressed to her friend Miss 
 Heath. Though the letter is written from Edinburgh, 
 not a word does it contain about the dungeon in 
 which hapless Mary, Queen of Scots, was immured, 
 nor, indeed, about the sufferings of any other, though 
 long departed, historical character. 
 
 " EDINBURGH, February 26, 1855. 
 
 ** DEAR ANNIE, If you should visit Great Britain, 
 recollect that no city will claim, rewardingly, so much of 
 your time as this. I have had the good fortune to enjoy 
 the best society here, and shall recollect so much with great 
 pleasure that it is painful to connect with it what is very 
 much the reverse of good, I mean a few of the many 
 public institutions in the city and neighborhood, which are 
 preeminently bad. Of these none are so much needing 
 quick reform as the private establishments for the insane. 
 I am confident that this move is to rest with me, and that 
 the sooner I address myself to this work of humanity, the 
 sooner will my conscience cease to suggest effort, or rebuke 
 inaction. It will be no holiday work, however ; but hun- 
 dreds of miserable creatures may be released from a bitter 
 bondage, which the people at large are quite unconscious of. 
 It is true I came here for pleasure, but that is no reason 
 why I should close my eyes to the condition of these most 
 helpless of all God's creatures." 
 
 It is clear from this letter that Miss Dix has already 
 begun to strike upon abuses and miseries in Scotland, 
 that fill her heart with the same distress and moral 
 wrath inspired in her by her first encounter with the 
 like in her native New England. This conviction 
 settled in an hour for her all international questions. 
 Scotland or the United States ! What matter in 
 which of the two, outcast wretches were shivering in 
 chill, dripping cells, chained to walls, beaten with 
 
232 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 clubs. To what end, she vehemently argued, did 
 Christ tell the story of the Samaritan stranger and 
 the wounded Jew, if every effort to obey his call, " Go 
 thou and do likewise," was to be paralyzed by the 
 modern travesty of the old, hard-hearted Jewish 
 maxim, " The Scotch have no dealings (of mercy 
 even) with the Americans " ? It was the Martin 
 Luther spirit once again to the front : " Here I stand, 
 God help me, I cannot otherwise ! " 
 
 Remonstrances from all sides now came from loved 
 and honored English friends. Some told her plainly 
 she could do no good, and that her action would be 
 regarded as impertinent interference on the part of a 
 stranger and outsider. Others reasoned with her as 
 though she were under the spell of mere nervous rest- 
 lessness. Still others deplored that, in her state of ex- 
 haustion, she should allow anything to interfere with 
 needful rest, and so endanger her prospects of future 
 usefulness. Among the last was her venerated friend, 
 Mrs. William Rathbone, to whom she replied in a let- 
 ter whose underscored words witness the vehemence of 
 her feeling in the matter. 
 
 To MRS. WILLIAM RATHBONE. 
 
 " I am not so very ill, only very variable, and, I assure 
 you, do not work the more for being tired. I am not natu- 
 rally very active, and never do anything there is a fair 
 chance other people will take up. So, when you know I am 
 busy, you may be sure it is leading the forlorn hope, 
 which I conduct to a successful termination through a cer- 
 tain sort of obstinacy that some people make the blunder of 
 calling zeal, and the yet greater blunder of having its first 
 inciting cause in philanthropy. I have no particular love 
 for my species at large, but own to an exhaustless fund of 
 compassion. 
 
THE AMERICAN INVADER. 233 
 
 " It is pretty clear that I am in for a serious work in both 
 England and Scotland. I do not see the end of this begin- 
 ning, but everybody says, who speaks at all on this question, 
 that if I go away the whole work will fall off. So I pur- 
 sue what I so strangely commenced." 
 
 Almost of the same date, February 20, is another 
 letter to Mrs. Rathbone, which shows what rapid prog- 
 ress she is making in gaining adherents, and how ut- 
 terly indifferent is now to her the question whether 
 the work of mercy she is engaged in shall chance to 
 fall within the boundaries of her own country or those 
 of a country not her own. 
 
 * EDINBURGH, February 20, 1855. 
 
 " Mr DEAR MRS. RATHBONE, The procession of my 
 fate still holds me here. I expected this night to have 
 lodged in Newcastle, but I am fairly in for reform of the 
 establishments at Musselburg, and have consented under ad- 
 vice and request of Mr. Comb, Sir Robert Arbuthnot, Lord 
 Irving (Senior Judge), the Lord Provost, Dr. Lincoln, and 
 others, to delay another week. I fear the next move con- 
 nected with this may be to London, but possibly not. Lord 
 Teignmouth and Sir Walter Trevelyan are numbered with 
 my allies. Your excellent friend Dr. Traill is earnest in 
 this business. I have asked him to check the idea that 
 some might naturally adopt that I came here to take up this 
 measure, than which nothing was ever farther from my 
 thoughts. Dr. Simpson, in his earnestness, introduced me 
 to a party the other day as ' our timely-arrived benefactor 
 and reformer.' This thought will kill my plans outright. 
 So I gave Dr. Traill the commission to set others right. 
 Unfortunately, everybody is very busy, and all say I can do 
 what citizens cannot. The Sheriff and the Procurator Fis- 
 cal are in great perplexity. 
 
 " I have written a great deal about myself, but do not 
 suppose, therefore, that I am self-engrossed. Tell Mr. Rath- 
 
234 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 bone, with my love, that I can bear a little, or a great deal, 
 of opposition and misapprehension in such a cause as I am 
 pressing here, and that it is a question of conscience with 
 me, not a self-indulging and indulgent pursuit. . . . But I 
 really do not want to create any additional discussion of this 
 question. I have here at all events < passed the Rubicon,' 
 and retreat is not to be thought of." 
 
 What now, it becomes pertinent to ask, was the jus- 
 tification the dire necessity, she herself would have 
 said of Miss Dix's thus heading the " forlorn hope " 
 and throwing herself into the breach, in the determi- 
 nation to bring to a sense of their accountability be- 
 fore God and man the people of another nationality 
 than her own ? The justification can in no way be 
 made clearer than through the direct statements and, 
 generally, express words of Dr. Daniel Hack Tuke, 
 one of the most prominent alienists of Great Britain. 
 In his " History of the Insane in the British Isles," 1 
 Dr. Tuke devotes a long section of his work to the 
 gradual steps toward amelioration taken in Scotland, 
 and emphasizes at length the obligation the whole 
 country lay under to Miss Dix for a work at once so 
 humanely conceived and so brilliantly executed, as ac- 
 tually to revolutionize the Lunacy 'Laws of the land. 
 This writer is a lineal descendant of the great-hearted 
 Quaker, William Tuke, who shares with Pinel the be- 
 neficent glory of ushering in the Age of Humanity in 
 the treatment of insanity. Moreover, as an eye-wit- 
 ness of the work of Miss Dix, in Scotland, and most 
 
 1 Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles, by Daniel 
 Hack Tuke, M. D., F. R. C. P., President of the Medico-Psychologi- 
 cal Association, Joint Editor of the Journal of Medical Science, and 
 formerly Visiting Physician to the York Retreat, London. Kegan 
 Paul, Trench, & Co., 1 Paternoster Square, 1882. 
 
THE AMERICAN INVADER. 235 
 
 efficient sympathizer with it, his testimony carries 
 additional weight. 
 
 " Judging from the records of the past [says Dr. Tuke], 
 as given or brought to light by writers like Heron, Daly ell, 
 and Dr. Mitchell, no country ever exceeded Scotland in the 
 grossness of its superstition and the unhappy consequences 
 which flowed from it. When we include in this the horrible 
 treatment of the insane, from the prevalent and for long 
 inveterate belief in witchcraft, we cannot find language 
 sufficiently strong to characterize the conduct of the people, 
 from the highest to the lowest in the land, until this mon- 
 strous belief was expelled by the spread of knowledge, the 
 influence of which on conduct and on law some do not suf- 
 ficiently realize. The lunatic and the witch of to-day might 
 aptly exclaim, 
 
 ' ' The good of ancient times let others state : 
 I think it lucky I was born so late ! ' 
 
 "Passing [continues Dr. Tuke] over two centuries, I 
 must observe that in 1792, Dr. Duncan, then President of 
 the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, laid before 
 that body a plan for establishing a lunatic asylum in the 
 neighborhood of Edinburgh. . . . but enough money was 
 not raised to start the project in a rational way. . . . First, 
 in 1807, a royal charter was obtained, and subscriptions were 
 raised, not only from Scotland, but England, and even 
 India, Ceylon, and the West Indies. Madras, alone, sub- 
 scribed 1,000. . . . From the beginning, the teaching of 
 mental disease to students was considered, as well as the 
 cure and care of the inmates. The management was a wise 
 one. 
 
 44 Next came an Act regulating madhouses in Scotland, 
 passed in the year 1815 that important epoch in lunacy 
 legislation in the British Isles. . . . 
 
 " On the 3d of February, 1818, a bill for the erecting of 
 district lunatic asylums in Scotland for the care and con- 
 
236 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 finement of lunatics, brought in by Lord Binning and Mr. 
 Brogden, was read for the first time. A few days after, a 
 petition of the noblemen, gentlemen, freeholders, justices 
 for the peace, commissioners of supply, and other heritors 
 of the County of Ayr, was presented against it. Persistent 
 obstruction triumphed, and the act was rejected. 
 
 " How much legislation was needed at this period is well 
 shown by the description by a philanthropist (Mr. J. J. 
 Gurney) of the condition of the lunatics in the Perth Tol- 
 booth. In his investigations, Mr. Gurney was accompanied 
 by his indefatigable sister, Mrs. Fry." 
 
 Mr. Grurney's report reads like one of Miss Dix's 
 own to State legislatures in America : 
 
 " Solitary confinement, dark closets far more like the 
 dens of wild animals than the habitations of mankind, cold 
 and nakedness, no resident in the house to superintend these 
 afflicted persons, poor demented wretches, treated exactly 
 as if they had been beasts." 
 
 " Scotland south of Edinburgh and Glasgow [continues 
 Dr. Tuke] had not, nntil 1839, any retreat or place of con- 
 finement for the insane, except six squalid stone cells at- 
 tached to the public hospital of Dumfries. Violent or 
 vagrant lunatics were physically restrained in their own 
 houses, allowed to roam at large, or incarcerated in prisons 
 or police stations." 
 
 It was not, however, till 1848, that legislation strik- 
 ing at the root of the worst evil was really undertaken. 
 Excellent asylums there were now in several quarters 
 of Scotland, some of them conducted on the most ad- 
 vanced system. But there was no sort of provision 
 for the indigent insane. Now, at length, a bill de- 
 signed, not merely to regulate existing asylums for the 
 well-to-do, but to establish asylums for pauper luna- 
 tics^ was brought in by the Lord Advocate (Lord 
 
THE AMERICAN INVADER. 237 
 
 Rutherfurd), Sir George Grey, and the Secretary of 
 War. Alas ! The old, cruel story was repeated. " Pe- 
 titions against it poured in from almost every shire in 
 Scotland, and the bill had unfortunately to be with- 
 drawn. Undaunted, the Lord Advocate made an- 
 other attempt in the following year, but with the same 
 result." The failure of this humane bill was fre- 
 quently deplored in the debates of succeeding years. 
 Still, it* was a brave attempt, which, as Dr. Tuke says 
 in a private letter, " no doubt to some extent prepared 
 the way for the victory Miss Dix achieved." 
 
 " It is not necessary [goes on the ' History of the Insane 
 in the British Isles '] to dwell longer on the condition of the 
 insane, or the legislation adopted on their behalf, till we 
 come to the year 1855, which proved to be the commence- 
 ment of a new departure in the care taken of them by the 
 State. Unfortunately, in spite of legal enactment, the state 
 of the insane in Scotland at this time, outside the asylums, 
 was as bad as it could be, and even in some asylums it was 
 deplorable. At this period a well-known American lady, 
 Miss Dix, who devoted her life to the interests of the 
 insane, visited Scotland, and the writer had the opportunity 
 of hearing from her own lips, on her return from her philan- 
 thropic expedition, the narration of what she saw of the 
 cruel neglect of the pauper lunatics in that country. She 
 caused so much sensation by her visits and her remon- 
 strances, accompanied by the intimation that she should 
 report what she witnessed at headquarters in London, that 
 a certain official in Edinburgh decided to anticipate 'the 
 American Invader,' as Dr. W. A. F. Browne called her. 
 Miss Dix was, however, equal to the occasion, and hurriedly 
 leaving the scene of her investigations, she took the night 
 mail to London, and appeared before the Home Secretary 
 on the following day, when the gentleman from Edinburgh 
 was still on the road, quite unconscious that the good lady 
 
238 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 had already traversed it. The facts she laid before the 
 Home Office were so startling that they produced a marked 
 effect, and, notwithstanding counter allegations, the conclu- 
 sion was very soon arrived at that there was sufficient prima 
 facie evidence to justify an inquiry. A Royal Commission 
 was appointed, dated April 3, 1855, to inquire into the 
 condition of lunatic asylums in Scotland, and the existing 
 state of the law of that country in reference to lunatics and 
 lunatic asylums." 
 
 Such, then, in brief outline, is the history of lunacy 
 legislation in Scotland up to the date of Miss Dix's 
 arrival there late in January, 1855. Seven years be- 
 fore, in 1848, as has been seen, the memorable struggle 
 in Parliament, led by Lord Advocate Rutherfurd, 
 Lord Ashley, Sir James Graham, Mr. E. Ellice, Mr. 
 Stuart Wortley, and Mr. H. Drummond, to secure 
 humane provision for the pauper lunatic, had been 
 cruelly defeated through the flood of selfish protests 
 against the bill poured in from almost every shire in 
 Scotland. The bill had finally been abandoned in 
 despair, and no farther courage was left to lead the 
 " forlorn hope." And yet by April 9, 1855, a little 
 more than two months after the arrival there of a 
 single-handed woman, and she a suffering invalid and 
 a foreigner, the following Order of Commission was 
 issued by Queen Victoria : 
 
 " WHITEHALL, April 9, 1855. 
 
 " The Queen has been pleased to direct letters patent to be 
 passed under the seal appointed by the Treaty of Union, to 
 be kept and made use of in place of the Great Seal of Scot- 
 land, appointing, 
 
 "William Gaskell, Esq., Fellow of the Royal College of 
 Surgeons : William George Campbell, Esq., Advocate, Sheriff 
 of the Shire of Fife : Alexander Earle Monteith, Esq., Barris- 
 
Till-: AMERICAN INVADER. 239 
 
 ter at Law : and James Coxe, Esq., Doctor of Medicine : to 
 be her Majesty's Commissioners for the purpose of inquir- 
 ing into the state of the Lunatic Asylums in Scotland, and 
 also into the present state of the law respecting Lunatics 
 and Lunatic Asylums in that part of the United Kingdom." 
 
 In all this, the simple facts of the case tell their own 
 story, perhaps more impressively than with any 
 added comment. Still, if a certain local light and at- 
 mosphere can be thrown around the naked facts, they 
 will appeal more vividly to the imagination. This will 
 be attempted in the ensuing chapter. Fortunately, 
 there remain a number of private letters and narra- 
 tives, which render it possible to do this. Enough 
 now and here, to say that alike in its inception, in the 
 masterly manner in which it was conducted, and in the 
 enthusiasm with which devoted noblemen, statesmen, 
 philanthropists, and men of the highest medical au- 
 thority were inspired to rally under its banner, the 
 whole achievement was the work of a single woman. 
 On all sides was the entire credit of the feat gener- 
 ously and unreservedly given to Miss Dix. No trace 
 of envy or of national jealousy intervened to deny her 
 the full meed of praise. At the most, it was deplored, 
 as by Sir George Grey on the floor of the House of 
 Commons, that the inauguration of so needed a reform 
 should have been left to the initiative of " a foreigner, 
 and that foreigner a woman, and that woman a dis- 
 senter." Perhaps, this frank avowal cannot be more 
 implicitly stated than in the following extract from 
 the speech of Mr. Ellice, M. P. : - 
 
 " The Commission was entirely due to Miss Dix's exer- 
 tion. After visiting the lunatic asylums of England, she 
 proceeded to Scotland, where her suspicions were aroused 
 by the great difficulty she experienced in penetrating into the 
 
240 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 lunatic asylums of Scotland ; but when she did gain access, 
 she found the unfortunate inmates were in a most miserable 
 condition. She came to London and placed herself in com- 
 munication with the Secretary of State for the Home De- 
 partment and with the Duke of Argyll, and at her instance 
 and without any public movement on the subject, a Royal 
 Commission was appointed to inquire into the state of the 
 lunatic asylums of Scotland. No one, we feel sure, could 
 read the Report of the Commission without feeling grateful 
 to that lady for having been instrumental in exposing pro- 
 ceedings which were disgraceful to this or to any civilized 
 country." 1 
 
 1 Parliamentary Debates, vol. cxiv., p. 1025. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE ROYAL COMMISSION. 
 
 TOWARD the attempt in this chapter to revive the 
 memory of some of the local incidents connected with 
 Miss Dix's Scotch experiences, in 1855, the writer of 
 this biography is under great obligation to Dr. Daniel 
 Hack Tuke for a letter, dated Hanwell, England, 
 August, 1888, embodying his own memories of those 
 exciting days. Other letters, partly of Miss Dix her- 
 self, and partly of friends who were eye-witnesses of 
 all that was going on, will follow. 
 
 " My reminiscences of Miss Dix's visit to this country, in 
 1855 [writes Dr. Tuke], during which visit she was for 
 some weeks our guest at York, are exceedingly vivid as to 
 the general impression left upon the memory, but I regret 
 to say, that the lapse of time about three and thirty 
 years has to some extent obliterated the details, in- 
 teresting and fruitful in result as they were, in the cause 
 of the insane which she had so much at heart. 
 
 " She was very much out of health, and indeed was confined 
 to bed for some days, but the indomitable energy with 
 which she pursued her mission was extraordinary. She 
 visited most of the institutions for the insane about York, 
 and I remember that on our driving in a hired vehicle to 
 one of them, she showed that her sympathies were not re- 
 stricted to the insane by remonstrating with the driver for 
 his treatment of the horse. . . . 
 
 " It was during Miss Dix's sojourn at York that she deter- 
 mined to ascertain the condition of the insane in Scotland. 
 
242 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 That country was justly famed for its excellent chartered 
 asylums,* the result of philanthropic endowments, and main- 
 tained by the payments of a certain number of higher class 
 patients. Miss Dix, however, knew full well from her ex- 
 perience of her own country, that such might be the case, 
 and yet a great mass of poor lunatics be altogether neglected 
 and shamefully treated. And so it proved. Her intrepid 
 raid upon the dwellings where lunatics and idiots were 
 stowed away, her visits to workhouses and to some asylums 
 in which paupers were confined, confirmed her worst mis- 
 givings, and her revelations took many of the Scotch them- 
 selves by surprise. 
 
 " It would have been more fitting had members of the 
 medical profession in Scotland ascertained and protested 
 against this deplorable condition of things, and it is not sur- 
 prising that when this terrible reformer, yet gentle lady, 
 came from the other side of the Atlantic to set their house 
 in order, the Scotch doctors were disposed to resent the in- 
 trusion. To some of these very men it proved, however, a 
 boon, for when an inquiry was instituted, and a Lunacy 
 Commission was established in Edinburgh, they were placed 
 on the Board. At the present day, there is not a doctor in 
 Scotland, interested in the welfare of the insane and in the 
 splendid asylums now in operation in that country, who 
 would not acknowledge the profound debt of gratitude due 
 to Miss Dix for her courage, her pertinacity, and her judi- 
 cious advice. . . . 
 
 " One amusing and characteristic incident of Miss Dix's 
 exposure of the treatment of the insane in some parts of the 
 country will no doubt be referred to in her biography, the 
 sudden departure of the Lord Provost of Edinburgh to Lon- 
 don, in order to forestall the American lady's representations 
 to the Home Secretary. Although this was before the 
 racing of rival trains between Edinburgh and London, wit- 
 
 1 I speak of them as a class. I am aware that some were not in a 
 creditable state, and that all are at the present time in a vastly im- 
 proved condition. 
 
THE ROYAL COMMISSION. 243 
 
 nessed at the present moment (August, 1888), the two actors 
 in the scene did undertake an exciting race to the English 
 capital, with the result that the lady beat the gentleman, 
 although by a very short space, interviewed the Secretary 
 of State, and produced an impression upon him too power- 
 ful to be removed by the assertions of the Lord Provost. 
 Fresh from her great exertions, she returned to York, much 
 exhausted, but sanguine as to the ultimate success of the 
 mission she had so bravely undertaken. . . . 
 
 " You ask me to indicate the salient features of Miss 
 Dix's character as they struck me when I knew her. It 
 seems to me that what I have now written is really the best 
 answer I can give to your request, but I may add a few 
 words. What she told me of having in the early part of her 
 life intended to live mainly to herself, to enjoy literature and 
 art without any higher aims, and of having discovered that 
 this was a fatal mistake, and resolved to devote her energies 
 to the good of man, seems to me the pivot on which her 
 future career revolved. The lines of one of her country- 
 women might seem to have been especially composed to 
 describe the change which came over Miss Dix : 
 
 " ' I slept arid dreamt that life was beauty, 
 I woke, and found that life was duty.' 
 
 In complete accord with the same idea, I may mention that 
 on the fly-leaf of her own Bible, presented to me when she 
 left our house, she had written Wordsworth's * Ode to 
 Duty.' 
 
 " Her long sustained exertions, undertaken from the high- 
 est motives, mark the untiring and irrepressible energy and 
 fortitude which more especially struck me during our per- 
 sonal acquaintance. That these qualities must have exerted 
 enormous influence in inducing others especially young 
 physicians to engage in the humane treatment of the 
 insane can easily be understood. . . . 
 
 "The refinement and intrinsic gentleness of Miss Dix 
 had much to do with the esteem and affection entertained 
 
244 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 for her, because they disarmed the criticism and opposition 
 which were hot unnaturally excited when a woman entered 
 the public arena, and was expected to commit injudicious 
 and emotional acts, however well-intentioned they might be. 
 But Miss Dix's enthusiasm was based on actual facts and 
 undeniable abuses, while the remedies she proposed were 
 those which commended themselves to the best men engaged 
 in the treatment of the insane in the United States. 
 
 " I will only say, in conclusion, that in whatever other de- 
 partment Miss Dix may have earned the gratitude of man- 
 kind, in that of the proper care and humane treatment of the 
 insane (not the so-called nonrestraint system which she did 
 not accept) she ought to be regarded as the patron saint of 
 every hospital for this class established through her instru- 
 mentality, as an angel of mercy, not only in her own, but in 
 other lands, and therefore held in everlasting remembrance 
 on both sides of the Atlantic as one worthy of double honor. 
 
 " D. HACK TUKE. 
 
 "HANWELL, August, 1888." 
 
 In preceding extracts, allusion has more than once 
 been made to the exciting railway race from Edinburgh 
 to London between Miss Dix and the Lord Provost of 
 Edinburgh, each bent on first gaining the ear and 
 prepossessing the mind of the Secretary of State, Sir 
 George Grey. The result of the race was one more 
 illustration of Napoleon's favorite sayings that " the 
 rarest kind of courage is two o'clock in the morning 
 courage," and that he " had always noticed that these 
 odd fifteen minutes determined the fate of the battle." 
 
 The Lord Provost stopped to have his trunk packed, 
 and to journey comfortably by day. Miss Dix grasped 
 a hand-bag and boarded the night train. How much 
 the whole issue of the reform which revolutionized the 
 lunacy legislation of Scotland turned on the twelve 
 hours start thus effected by Miss Dix's lightning-swift 
 decision, it is of course impossible to say. 
 
THE ROYAL COMMISSION. 245 
 
 One important point gained is, however, certain. 
 The hot haste with which she traveled secured for her 
 the opportunity for another of those interviews at close 
 quarters, in which her commanding personality reached 
 the culmination of its power. Already has it been 
 seen how one of those memorable interviews, that with 
 Mr. Cyrus Butler, of Providence, Rhode Island, se- 
 cured the foundation of the Butler Asylum ; and how 
 another, that with Mr. Thomas Blagden, of Washing- 
 ton, D. C., led to the immediate surrender on his part 
 of the magnificent site at present occupied by the 
 Army and Navy Lunatic Asylum. The third is now 
 on the eve between herself and Sir George Grey. 
 Later on, a fourth is to be witnessed in Rome, with 
 Pope Pius IX. What depths in the heart were 
 reached in those exceptional hours, and how abiding 
 was the impression wrought, can now be judged only 
 by the momentous results which followed, or, here and 
 there, by a brief expression like that in Mr. Blagden's 
 letter: " Regarding you, as I do, as the instrument 
 in the hands of God to secure this very spot for the 
 unfortunates whose best earthly friend you are, I sin- 
 cerely believe that the Almighty's blessing will not 
 rest on, nor abide with, those who may place obstacles 
 in your way." 
 
 Fortunately, there has been preserved a more than 
 ordinarily long letter of Miss Dix herself, to her 
 friend, Mrs. Samuel Torrey, of Boston, Massachusetts, 
 in which the flying trip to London, and the great 
 results it led to, are circumstantially detailed. The 
 letter is here subjoined : 
 
 " LONDON, 18 GLOUCESTER SQUARE, March 8, 1855. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND, I am here only on business, and 
 for a short time at present, intending to return to Edinburgh 
 
246 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 in a few days. . . . While in Edinburgh, I had discovered 
 eleven Private Establishments for the Insane, to which 
 licenses had been given by the Sheriff of Mid-Lothian (who 
 exercises the function of Chief Justice in the High Court of 
 the County) without regard to the special qualifications 
 requisite. People of the lowest grade of character, and very 
 ignorant, had been accepted upon their application for lib- 
 erty to open houses for all classes of patients. 
 
 ** The Public Institutions for the treatment of Insanity are 
 good, very good. I have visited all these, namely, Dumfries, 
 Marston, Glasgow, Perth, Dundee, Aberdeen, and Edin- 
 burgh, besides thirteen private houses, some of which have 
 several hundred patients. But as I was saying, those at 
 Mussellburgh, six miles from Edinburgh, were so very ill 
 ordered, and the proprietors so irresponsible for all they 
 did, or did not do, that I took decisive steps, calling the at- 
 tention of the Lord Provost, Dr. Traile, the Chief Justices, 
 and other influential citizens to their condition. 
 
 " The law is singularly defective, allowing, without consent 
 of the proprietors, no admission to these places, except in 
 the person of the Sheriff of Mid-Lothian, who may take a 
 physician of the Medical College on his semi-annual visita- 
 tions. The semi-annual visits of medical men, employed by 
 the proprietors, were not likely to control the direction of 
 the parties. The law required them to report abuses, if 
 abuses existed ; their pecuniary interests urged them to 
 pass them in silence ; in fine, the proprietors had the thing 
 all their own way, and they were intent on making money. 
 " The Sheriff, when I appealed to him as really the sole 
 authority, trifled, jested, and prevaricated. I could not ex- 
 cuse this. The weather was very cold, the poor patients 
 by hundreds suffering. I consulted the Justice, three physi- 
 cians, Mr. Comb, and Mr. Mackenzie, Sir Robert Arbuthnot, 
 and several besides. The conclusion was that nothing would 
 do but to demand of the Home Secretary, Sir George Grey, 
 in London, a Commission for Investigation. But who was 
 to go ? One was an invalid, a dozen had urgent professional 
 
THE ROYAL COMMISSION. 247 
 
 business. / why could not / go ? said one and another. 
 It was clear to me that if I would see this done at once, 
 which was so much needed, I must go. 
 
 " I looked into my purse, and counted time, and consid- 
 ered my health, for I had not felt so strong for some days 
 as I could desire, but my conscience told me quite dis- 
 tinctly what was my duty. I took, then, my carpet-bag, and 
 wrapping about me my warm traveling garments, called a 
 cab, and at a quarter past nine P. M. put myself into the 
 express train direct for London, expecting to arrive in 
 twelve hours, four hundred miles. I first telegraphed to Lord 
 Shaftesbury, asking an interview at three P. M. the following 
 day, and naming the King's Cross Station as my point of 
 arrival. I did not sleep, but was comfortable. An accident 
 at nine A. M. detained the train till eleven A. M., which 
 should have arrived an hour and a half earlier. 
 
 "I had never been in London, knew not one location. 
 I stepped from the royal mail carriage, and a gentleman 
 in a moment asked if I was Miss Dix, and announced a 
 messenger from Lord Shaftesbury, accepting my appoint- 
 ment at the C office, 19 Whitehall Place. 
 
 " I looked at my watch. It was only an hour to twelve. 
 I had not time to dress for presentation, took a cab, and 
 asking the distance to Kensington, where I had learned was 
 the residence of the Duke of Argyle (for I could reach that 
 point in an hour), threw off my traveling cloak in the cab 
 for a velvet I had in my hand, folded a cashmere shawl on, 
 and believe I did not look so much amiss as one traveling 
 so far might look. 
 
 " The clock struck twelve. I was at Argyle Lodge on 
 
 C Hill, Kensington. The bell was rung ; a servant 
 
 answered. I sent in my card ; was introduced ; found the 
 Duchess and two others in the library with the Duke ; 
 opened my subject ; asked of his Grace immediate commu- 
 nication on his part in behalf of Scotland with the Home 
 Secretary. An hour and a half settled matters. His Grace 
 
248 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 would call for me at Whitehall Place at three and a half, to 
 go to Downing Street. 
 
 " I was to proceed to the former place at once ; found 
 myself there at two and a half. Happily, Lord Shaftesbury 
 anticipated his time, and I found all the Board in session. 
 We talked the whole subject over ; settled that no time 
 ought to be lost in urging the usually tardy Secretary. His 
 Grace the Duke arrived and reported Sir George Grey 
 summoned to a council at Buckingham Palace, but said, 
 * You shall see him yourself, but I shall now meet him at 
 the palace, and will state what you have said.' 
 
 " It was now 4 p. M. I could do no more till the follow- 
 ing day, so sent for a cab, and drove to 38 Gloucester 
 Square to my banker's (Mr. Morgan), asked for a basin of 
 water to wash my neglected face and hands, a cup of tea, 
 and bed, all of which Mr. Morgan's prompt orders secured. 
 In the evening I got a note from his Grace, saying that Sir 
 George doubted his authority to order a commission for 
 Scotland, that the Lord Advocate must be consulted. This 
 I did not wish, for I knew social and political interests 
 would hinder the right action of Lord Moncrieff. In the 
 morning I drove again to Argyle Lodge. His Grace said 
 that Sir George expressed willingness to comply, but hes- 
 itated to act. He would see him again. I saw, then, Lord 
 Shaftesbury and got forward some affairs respecting the 
 English hospitals. 
 
 " The next day a note from the Duke informed me that 
 the Home Secretary had written to the Lord Advocate at 
 Edinburgh. I took a carriage and determined to see Sir 
 George myself, drove to Downing Street, sent up my card 
 with a written request for a personal interview in the recep- 
 tion room of the Home Department ; was ushered up with 
 some state, and received courteously by his Lordship ; stated 
 my wishes. Sir George said he had already consulted the 
 Lord Chancellor, and he doubted his power to issue war- 
 rants without the concurrence of the Lord Advocate (' to 
 
THE ROYAL COMMISSION. 249 
 
 whom I have telegraphed,' added Sir George, ' and who will 
 forthwith come to London. He may be here on Monday.') 
 Next I received the thanks of the Home Secretary for my 
 efforts, thanked him in return for his early attention to the 
 subject and unprecedented alacrity in the annals of public 
 affairs here, and proceeded to see Sir James Clark, the 
 Queen's physician. He entered cordially into my plans, and 
 so I waited. 
 
 "Monday the Lord Advocate did not come. Tuesday 
 still not heard from, nor Wednesday. Thursday he arrived, 
 and sent a note appointing to call the following day. We 
 had a long conference. I got the promise from him that 
 the Commission of reform for all Scotland should at once be 
 formed. Sir George Grey had taken orders to that effect, 
 with his concurrence, the Lord Chancellor approving. To- 
 day I have all business closed. I have two Commissions, 
 one of inquiry, one of investigation in Mid-Lothian. This 
 assures, first, reports into the condition of all the insane in 
 Scotland. Next the entire modification of the Lunacy 
 laws, the abrogation of all Private establishments ; the 
 establishment of two or three new general hospitals, etc. 
 My odd time I have spent chiefly in securing the interest 
 and votes of members of Parliament for the Bill soon to be 
 introduced, and now I go back to Edinburgh to-morrow to 
 report this to parties interested, and to rest if I need it, 
 which is more than probable. In two weeks I shall go to 
 Walsington, the seat of Sir Walter-Calverley Trevelyan, 
 who has with Lady Trevelyan invited me there, and they 
 will do the honors of Northumberland. I cannot write 
 more DOW. Yours truly, 
 
 "D. L. Dix." 
 
 Two other brief notes of Miss Dix, to her friend, 
 Mrs. Rathbone, of Liverpool, the first expressive 
 of amazement at the opportunities for concealment 
 afforded the Private Insane Asylums of Scotland, and 
 the other indulging in the freest strictures on certain 
 
250 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 of the Scotch officials, are all that remain of her 
 correspondence from London. 
 
 "LONDON, February 27, 1855. 
 
 "Sir George Grey has consulted the Lord Chancellor, 
 and, strange as is the fact, it is doubted if any official party 
 in England has the right to authorize the inspection of any 
 private madhouse of whatever capacity in Scotland. The 
 question is now under debate." 
 
 " LONDON, February 28, 1855. 
 
 " The Sheriff is a bad man, wholly despotic, and ridicules 
 the entire idea of reform ; the Procurator Fiscal is not, like 
 the Sheriff, a dissipated man, but a member and elder of 
 Dr. Guthrie's church, but tied with red tape to the Sheriff ; 
 the Lord Advocate is crowded with business and is a selfish 
 man, so that I have an odd sort of work on my hands. 
 But ultimately good will result from this. I certainly hold 
 myself much better occupied in doing this work than in 
 strolling about Rome or Florence." 
 
 Her task in London thus successfully ended, Miss 
 Dix as soon as possible went back to Scotland, to 
 mass farther material for a report to be submitted to 
 the Royal Commission, which should start and keep 
 them on the real scent. By native instinct and years 
 of training she had long since become master of the art 
 of tracking to their hidden lairs, and dragging out to 
 the light of day, the sullenest and most secret shapes 
 of human deceit and cruelty. All in vain was it to seek 
 to throw her off the scent. Keen-sighted, and tireless as 
 an American Indian hunter, when once she had struck 
 the trail of duplicity and greed, she followed it relent- 
 lessly through thicket, defile, or swamp, till she had 
 come up with poor wretches hidden in the Cave of 
 Despair to which it led. A sort of terror, as of the 
 terror of vermin before nobler creatures of the hunt, 
 
THE ROYAL COMMISSION. 251 
 
 inevitably set in upon the objects of her pursuit. 
 Thence the impression she made on all the friends of 
 reform in Scotland ; and thence their insistence that, 
 should she draw back, everything would relapse into 
 the old state of apathy and despair. She, a for- 
 eigner and a woman, was besought to go to London 
 to bring the whole issue before the highest tribunal of 
 the United Kingdom, simply because it was instinc- 
 tively felt that no one else could do it with such com- 
 manding authority of knowledge and character. 
 
 Setting to work on the trails opened to them by 
 Miss Dix, the members of the Royal Commission soon 
 thoroughly indorsed the fidelity of the revelation of 
 shame and cruelty she had so impressively made. By 
 May 14, Dr. James Coxe, of the Commission, wrote 
 her : 
 
 " We came home yesterday from a hurried raid upon 
 Perth and Dundee, and start to-morrow for Glasgow, 
 Greenock, etc. We have seen enough already to convince 
 us that there is ample field for work before us which cannot 
 fail to bring a glorious harvest. Hitherto, we have scarcely 
 scraped the ground." 
 
 Likewise, Dr. David Skae, of the Royal Edinburgh 
 Asylum for the Insane, continually wrote her, express- 
 ing his amazement at her power to impress influential 
 people, and insisting that she was still indispensable 
 to the complete triumph of the good work. 
 
 Though the immediate personal share of Miss Dix 
 in the matter of reform in Scotland was now in a 
 month or two to end, it is of interest to pursue here 
 the subsequent work of the Royal Commission, as well 
 as to tell the story of the practical legislation in Par- 
 liament, which was the result of their investigations. 
 
252 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 Not before 1857 almost a year after the return 
 of Miss Dix to the United States did the Commis- 
 sion make its report to Parliament. Its radical char- 
 acter, however, when once made pnblic, may be judged 
 from a few extracts : 
 
 " It is obvious [says the Report] that an appalling amount 
 of misery prevails throughout Scotland in this respect. 1 
 When estimating the condition of the insane not in estab- 
 lishments, it should be remembered that the details fur- 
 nished by us give only an imperfect representation of the 
 true state of matters. They form only a part of the picture 
 of misery ; and had we been able to extend our investiga- 
 tions, it would, we are convinced, have assumed a much 
 darker shade." 
 
 It is not needful here to go into particulars of the 
 enormities encountered on all sides. The reader of 
 this biography has already gone over precisely parallel 
 details, of necessity presented in describing Miss Dix's 
 early work in the United States. That, in either 
 county, the same hard-hearted brutality characterized 
 many of the overseers of pauper lunatics is clear 
 enough from the testimony of one of them before the 
 Commission, who, after admitting that numbers of the 
 patients, men and women, were stripped at night, and 
 huddled together on loose straw in a state of perfect 
 nudity, went on to add, " I consider the treatment is 
 proper for them" 
 
 In short, both as regards licensed houses and unli- 
 censed houses, the report winds up by giving a dismal 
 picture ; for as to the former, " They are crowded in 
 an extreme degree. Profit is the principal object of 
 the proprietors, and the securities against abuse are 
 very inadequate ; " and as to the latter, " They have 
 
 1 Condensed from The History of the Insane in the British Isles. 
 
THE ROYAL COMMISSION. 253 
 
 been opened as trading concerns for the reception of 
 a certain class of patients who are detained in them 
 without any safeguard whatever against ill-treatment 
 and abuse." 
 
 " The Report once fully presented to Parliament, Mr. 
 Ellice, the member for St. Andrews, asked the government 
 what steps they intended to take. He charged the Scotch 
 authorities with an almost total neglect of the duties which 
 were incumbent on them under the law, that their state- 
 ments were positively untruths, and entirely deceptive, year 
 after year, as to the real state of the lunatics in Scotland. 
 
 " The member for Aberdeen characterized the Report of 
 Commissioners as ' one of the most horrifying documents he 
 had ever seen. It was a state of things which they could 
 not before have believed to prevail in any civilized country, 
 much less in this country, which made peculiar claims to 
 civilization, and boasted of its religious and humane princi- 
 ples. . . . Distressing as were the cases which he had 
 mentioned, there were others ten times worse, remaining 
 behind so horrible, indeed, that he durst not venture to 
 shock the feelings of the House by relating them.' 
 
 " Sir George Grey homceopathically diluted the blame of 
 the Board of Supervision of Scotland, by showing that the 
 individual responsibility was infinitesmal, and could not, 
 therefore be detected and punished in the way it so richly 
 merited ; but promised to introduce a bill, calculated to 
 remove the defects in the law, established by the Report. 
 . . . The Lord Advocate rejoiced at the publication of the 
 Report and the statements of Mr. Ellice from the bottom of 
 his heart, because the state of things has for a long time 
 been a disgrace and a scandal to Scotland. ' The people of 
 that country,' he said, ' had known that it was a disgrace 
 and a scandal, and he regretted to add that it was not the 
 first time that statements had been made similar to those to 
 which they had just listened. . . . That noble-minded lady, 
 Miss Dix, went to Edinburgh and visited the asylums at 
 
254 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 Musselburgh. After seeing them, she said there was some- 
 thing wrong, and she wished to be allowed to visit them at 
 the dead of night, when she would not be expected. He 
 had felt a difficulty about giving a permission of that kind 
 to a non-official person, and accordingly she applied to the 
 Home Secretary. . . . The facts were now so clearly 
 proved that if he proposed the very remedy which was re- 
 jected in 1848, it would he adopted by both Houses of 
 Parliament, without any important opposition.' " 
 
 " On the second reading [June 9, 1857] no serious oppo- 
 sition was offered to the bill. Mr. Cowan, member for 
 Edinburgh, said that he had been requested to present a 
 petition, signed by the Lord Provost and Magistrates of 
 Edinburgh, seeking for delay, but he did not like to incur 
 that responsibility, and would therefore support the second 
 reading. . . . Mr. Hope Johnstone, member for Dumfries- 
 shire, enforced these remonstrances by stating that he had 
 representations made to him from every quarter in opposi- 
 tion to the appointment of a new board. Mr. Drummond 
 hereupon made an observation greatly to his credit, which 
 deserves to be remembered. He said that the question was 
 not so much what would be the most expensive, as what 
 would be the most efficient machinery. There were plenty 
 of representatives of the rate-payers in that House, but no 
 representatives of the lunatics of Scotland. They seemed 
 to have no friends there, while really they were the persons 
 who stood most in need of being represented." 
 
 Through these extracts from speeches made in Par- 
 liament, the at last fully aroused spirit of that body 
 is clearly revealed. How changed, through the heroic 
 fire of a single woman, the moral temper, from the 
 days of 1848, when Lord Rutherfurd's Bill was help- 
 lessly swept away before the flood of remonstrances 
 that poured in from rate-payers and interested parties 
 all over Scotland ! Now certain of the Scotch mem- 
 
THE ROYAL COMMISSION. 255 
 
 bers did not dare so much as to present the selfish ob- 
 jections of their constituents. The victory was com- 
 plete, and August 25, 1857, came the passage of the 
 Act 20 & 21 Viet. c. 71 through which a new 
 epoch was inaugurated in humane and adequate pro- 
 vision for the insane, especially the pauper insane, 
 of Scotland. This meant nothing less than the foun- 
 dation of new and humanely administered asylums 
 in various quarters of the land, to the relief of an 
 untold amount of human misery. 
 
 As already stated, some considerable time before 
 the final passage of this Act, Miss Dix had returned 
 to the United States, and was as zealously as ever at 
 work in her old field. None the less, devoted friends 
 abroad kept her apprised of the steady progress of 
 the good cause. A few extracts from letters, of 
 widely differing dates, will throw farther local light 
 on this memorable episode in a memorable career. 
 
 " EDINBURGH, June 4, 1857. 
 
 " DEAR MADAM, Some days ago, I had the pleasure 
 of writing to announce that the Scotch Lunacy Report had 
 broken the shell and seen the light. We are quite sur- 
 prised at the sensation the Report has produced. Through- 
 out the length and breadth of the land, the press is ringing 
 with it. ... At first I took what steps I could to direct 
 public attention to the result of our labors, but soon my 
 only fear was that the general clamor would pass beyond 
 bounds. . . . You will see by the proceedings in Parlia- 
 ment, that no time is to be lost in bringing forward a reme- 
 dial measure. Government is wise in this respect. Strike 
 while the iron is hot. This is evidently their maxim, and 
 doubtless if they waited till next session they would meet 
 with far more opposition. I hope you noticed how cordially 
 Sir George Grey acknowledged in the House of Commons the 
 obligations we are under to you. What the nature of the 
 
256 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 proposed measure may be, is not yet known, but rumor says 
 it is to be an extension of the English Commission to Scot- 
 land. 
 
 " With much respect, 
 
 " Very faithfully yours, 
 
 "JAMES COXE." 
 
 ** EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, June 20, 1857. 
 
 ..." You will have seen from the English newspapers 
 that our Report has created considerable sensation, and that 
 the Lord Advocate has already introduced a legislative 
 measure into Parliament. Already, on every side, is heard 
 the din of preparation for resistance. Town councils, 
 county meetings, parochial boards, and the existing large 
 asylums, are banding together for this object, all animated 
 with the desire to avoid legal interference. I have thought 
 the public might be made to adopt more humane and less 
 selfish views by showing them what you are doing in Amer- 
 ica, and how generously the Legislatures come to your aid. 
 I have therefore taken the liberty to send to the newspapers 
 an extract from your letter. 
 
 " Most truly yours, 
 
 " JAMES COXE." 
 
 In a letter from Sir James A. Clark, Physician to 
 the Queen, who had attended Miss Dix during a se- 
 vere inflammatory attack, in London, occurs the fol- 
 lowing grateful assurance : 
 
 " BAGSHOT PARK, SURREY, December 30, 1861. 
 " Before going farther I will give you a piece of informa- 
 tion which I feel sure will gratify you, as the first move- 
 ment in the improvement which has been effected in Scot- 
 land through your exertions. The treatment of the pauper 
 insane in Scotland is now more carefully attended to than 
 in any other part of Great Britain, I may say. 
 " Sincerely yours, 
 
 "J. A. CLARK." 
 
THE ROYAL COtfMISSION. 257 
 
 Finally, from her fast friend, Dr. Tuke, came the 
 ensuing expression of congratulation : 
 
 ' FALMOUTH, CORNWALL, ENGLAND, May 6, 1865. 
 " I think you might say to the Scotch, * You are my joy 
 and my crown,' for they have gone on wonderfully since 
 1 The American Invader ' aroused them from their leth- 
 argy. 
 
 " Sincerely your friend, 
 
 " D. HACK TUKE." 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 
 
 IN order to complete the account of the action of 
 the Royal Commission, extending as it did through a 
 period of several years, it became necessary, in the 
 previous chapter, to leave Miss Dix at the close of her 
 personal share in the work of reform in Scotland. A 
 severe inflammatory attack, brought on by the damp 
 and chill she had exposed herself to in a hurried visit 
 to Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's, when already 
 overfatigued by the heavy responsibilities of her work 
 in London, had left her little strength for the farther 
 probing of the foul nest of evils she had agreed to 
 prosecute on her return to Scotland. Spite of all, she 
 persisted until, her report finally prepared for the help 
 of the Commissioners, she now sought rest in the 
 home of her friend, Dr. Tuke, in York, England. 
 Not for long, however. Circumstances were soon to 
 occur destined once again to bring to her lips the fa- 
 miliar refrain, 
 
 " Rest is not quitting 1 the busy career." 
 
 The original impulse toward the new project which 
 was before long to engross Miss Dix's mind will be 
 found stated in a letter addressed by her, May 6, 1855, 
 to her life-long friend and, at times, personal physician, 
 Dr. H. A. Buttolph, then Superintendent of the Tren- 
 ton Asylum, New Jersey. As written to her medical 
 adviser, this letter contains a more detailed account of 
 
THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 259 
 
 her physical disabilities than, on the matter of health, 
 was common with one, who, in her correspondence 
 and intercourse with her friends, so generally acted 
 on the sun-dial maxim, " Horas non numero nisi sere- 
 nas." The letter soon goes on, however, to give an 
 account of the chance interview which first called her 
 attention to the sad condition of things existing in the 
 Channel Islands ; l and is farther accompanied by a copy 
 of a communication from a young Dutch alienist, Dr. 
 Van Leuveri^ then temporarily resident on the Island 
 of Jersey. With these preliminary explanations, the 
 
 letters will tell their own story. 
 
 " YORK, May 16, 1855. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND, You will recollect all the symp- 
 toms for which you have treated me when I have from time 
 to time been your guest. These have never left me at any 
 time, and, though not ill always, I have at no time felt well 
 enough to justify uncertain journeys on the Continent. 
 Counting time since I left the steamer, I find that rather 
 more than half the period I have been either really too ill, 
 or too languid, to do anything. The irritation of the mu- 
 cous membrane of the stomach has of late affected me more 
 seriously, and the inaction of the heart has left me fee- 
 ble. . . . 
 
 " In Scotland, I felt myself giving out, but came forward 
 to York intending to rest a day, and then see the fourteen 
 public and private institutions for the insane in this immedi- 
 ate vicinity. I commenced, but gave out, and am here in a 
 cheerful, quiet apartment. Next to mine, retiring from the 
 labors of an active life spent in the cause of the insane, lies 
 helpless the good Samuel Tuke, the master of this house. 
 The Angel of Death stands at the door watching, but still 
 the last great blessing is deferred, the entrance into the im- 
 
 1 A number of islands in the British Channel, politically attached 
 to Great Britain, but connected with France by geographical position, 
 the largest of which are Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney. 
 
260 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 mortal life where no clouds obscure the thought, nor hinder 
 the spirit's growth. 
 
 " Let me give you an instance of what, in my case, I call 
 leads of Providence. So I wait a little now till returning 
 strength comes to assist the weakened instrument of the 
 Divine will. This I say most reverently and with full un- 
 derstanding of what I have in view. 
 
 " When in Edinburgh last winter, I accidentally, as it 
 might be said, called in at Dr. Simpson's. In the drawing- 
 room was a lady from the south of England, who, hearing my 
 name, came immediately forward, and asked if I had ever 
 visited the islands of Jersey and Guernsey in the British 
 Channel. I replied in the negative, when she and her uncle 
 proceeded to give me an account of the great abuses to which 
 the insane were there subject, and concluded by begging 
 that I would go there. I could not go then, but I laid these 
 things up in my mind. 
 
 " Well, a few days after I was here. Dr. Tuke entered 
 my room with some pamphlets, asked me if I read French, 
 and said, ' Here is an interesting report from Dr. Van Leu- 
 ven, of Jersey/ I read it during the day, and at the even- 
 ing visit said to the doctor, ' I see a movement is made in 
 Jersey; if it has led to no result beside employing Dr. Van 
 Leuven to visit and report on hospitals abroad, my going to 
 Jersey would be quite a work of supererogation, for which I 
 have, I assure you, no inclination. Do write to the doctor 
 for information.' This was done at once. The return post 
 brought the following answer, and determined my duty and 
 next work, as soon as I am well enough. Dr. Van Leu- 
 ven's letter is as follows : 
 
 "'ISLAND OF JERSEY. 
 
 " * MY DEAR TUKE, I have your welcome letter and 
 hasten to answer you about Miss Dix's visit. Strange to say 
 it was only last Saturday, oth of May, three days ago, that 
 I had a proposal from Mr. Isaac Pothecary, of Grove Place 
 near Southampton (well known for its inhuman treatment 
 
THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 261 
 
 and dealings in lunatics, see reports of the Commissioners), 
 asking if I would give him some information and assistance 
 in establishing a private asylum for the insane in Jersey, 
 he could not go on in England since the Commissioners were 
 so severe, the laws so stringent, and the formalities for the 
 reception of patients so embarrassing " to escape or avoid 
 all this nonsense in England, he intended to transport not 
 less than twenty private patients (of whom some paid 500 
 and more per annum) to Jersey, where even no license is 
 required," and "he had come here to look out for two or 
 more fit places for their reception." " I would then," so he 
 writes, " have you visit my asylums twice a week, and be 
 well paid." 
 
 " ' I could not help, my dear Tuke, thinking of cattle and 
 horses and slave-dealers, and of York asylums in 1816, and 
 of Bethlem Hospital in 1852 ! What had I to do ? Mr. 
 Pothecary was decided about coming over with the poor 
 patients next week. I could not check him. Ought I to 
 withhold my assistance ? Well, I thought, I do not assist 
 the mercenary interests of Mr. Pothecary, but I may assist 
 his unhappy patients. If I withdraw entirely, I leave the 
 poor sufferers at the mercy of their owner, and of some of 
 the many doctors in Jersey, who do everything for money. 
 
 " * So the matter stands in an island whose government 
 does not care one bit for its own pauper insane, and much 
 less for those imported from England. Could Miss Dix 
 persuade the English Government to admit no asylums in 
 Jersey, Guernsey, or Wright, but under the same laws as 
 exist in England? This would be the proper thing. If 
 Miss Dix will come to Jersey, I will give her a hearty wel- 
 come, that she may counterbalance the odious Insanity 
 Trade now begun. Please communicate to Miss Dix my 
 most respectful regards. And let me hear soon. 
 
 " ' Yours very truly, D. H. VAN LEUVEN.' 
 
 " There, my Friend, this must help me get well soon ! 
 " Adieu. Yours truly, D. L. D." 
 
262 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 Eminently characteristic of Miss Dix, this final ex- 
 clamation, " There, my Friend, this must help me get 
 well soon ! " In her own entirely rational way, she 
 was thirty-five years ago as thorough a believer in the 
 " Mind Cure " as are to-day thousands in their puer- 
 ile and superstitious way, that is, her faith in the ren- 
 ovating power over bodily infirmity of a great pur- 
 pose, or a generous affection, was invincible. The idea, 
 however, that should she chance to break a leg or rup- 
 ture an artery, all that was needful was firmly to be- 
 lieve in a new sound leg, in order, forthwith, to walk 
 off safely on it, or in a new circulatory system, in or- 
 der to dispense with the degrading material assistance 
 of a tourniquet, this idea, reserved for certain of her 
 later more enlightened American sisters, was one 
 which never crossed her imperfectly illuminated mind. 
 
 Indeed, this whole letter to Dr. Buttolph, with its en- 
 closures, furnishes a striking example of unconscious 
 self-revelation of character. It begins, as addressed 
 to a physician, with the pains and infirmities of the 
 poor body, the sole mortal instrument at the disposal 
 of a most ardent mind. The chronic symptoms, enr 
 feebled action of the heart, irritability of the mucous 
 lining, involving both the digestive organs and the 
 lungs, and others which have not been enumerated, 
 are clearly and distinctly stated. But soon heart and 
 soul assert their ascendancy. A new inspiring proj- 
 ect has risen before her mind. Not an allusion to 
 the wonderful success of the recent campaign in Scot- 
 land. That work is over and done. Now for the 
 next duty the Lord would summon her to ! " Let 
 me give you an instance of what, in my case, I call 
 leads of Providence / " To her, there is no chance 
 in the world. No one need seek after his way in life. 
 
THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 263 
 
 It is revealed to him, if lie have eyes to see and ears to 
 hear, in the everyday events of life. God is in them, 
 God speaks through them. The whole universe is the 
 immediate call of God, requiring no other answer but 
 a swift and obedient " Here am I, send me ! " " The 
 return post determined my duty and next work! " 
 
 One all-important link in the chain of circumstances 
 through which, as Miss Dix devoutly believed, God 
 bound every willing soul to its appointed task, had, 
 in this instance, been young Dr. Van Leuven, to 
 whom allusion has several times been made. Among 
 the French papers given her to read by Dr. Tuke 
 was a series of letters written by this philanthropic 
 Hollander, in which he had tried to rouse public sen- 
 timent in Jersey, in behalf of the wretched and neg- 
 lected insane. An extract will show the strength and 
 pathos with which he wrote, though it suffers through 
 its translation from French into English : 
 
 u Eight days after the appearance of my third article in 
 this newspaper (June 27, 1853), a respectable Jersey 
 farmer came to talk with me. Through his simplicity, the 
 stamp of truth, his discourse so interested me that I feel it 
 my duty to give it here, almost in his own words. 
 
 " ' Sir,' he said, ' I am only a poor Jersey farmer. For- 
 merly, I knew better days, but I have been reduced these 
 many years by an unhappy insane son. Reading your arti- 
 cles in the " Chronique," I wanted to express my gratitude 
 for what you have written in behalf of the insane poor, and 
 to say, God bless your efforts ! ' 
 
 " I then asked him to tell me a little about his troubles. 
 
 " * Yes, sir,' continued the good man, * I have suffered 
 greatly from this affliction which, as you say, has plunged 
 so many families in misery. Through an epidemic of fever, 
 which raged here sixteen years ago, my son became insane. 
 Since that time my annual trips to England for the sale of 
 
264 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 Jersey cows have been suspended. I was obliged to stay 
 at home to watch over my son, for there was no one else to 
 take proper care of him ; my wife and the other children 
 were too exhausted, or had suffered too much while I was 
 away ; our neighbors were afraid of him. How many times 
 has he escaped from the house when I had to be elsewhere ; 
 for example, taking part in the militia drill of my parish ! 
 How many whole nights have I spent searching for him ! 
 Often I would find him asleep, from weariness, on danger- 
 ous cliffs, and chilled with frost ! In thus devoting myself 
 to my unhappy son, I was obliged to neglect my trade in 
 Jersey cows, and met severe losses. His image followed me 
 everywhere. Before long he became so violent that I was 
 obliged to bind him. I went to the General Hospital to see 
 about placing him there, but I found the insane quarters 
 utterly unfit for human beings, least of all for those insane. 
 Finally, I was forced to resort to iron chains : yes, sir, I had 
 to chain up my own son ! My heart was broken under such 
 misery ! ' 
 
 " Poor Jersey father, who have had yourself to chain 
 your own child ! How bitter will this memory be when one 
 day you will see in Jersey a special asylum for the insane, 
 where, as in the English asylums, there will be no more 
 frightful cells, nor iron bars, nor any shapes of mechanical 
 constraint ! Such an asylum in this island, and your son 
 could have been saved, and you need never to have been 
 reduced to this poverty ! " 
 
 Still farther information from Dr. Van Leuven 
 arrived later, to which allusion is made in the follow- 
 ing letter from Dr. Tuke, written to Miss Dix when 
 she was somewhere away from his home : 
 
 " ST. LAWRENCE PARISH, June 23, 1855. 
 
 " I must talk to you about our excellent Jersey friend and 
 his admirable letter of June llth. There does indeed seem 
 to be the most remarkable opening, and your power of doing 
 
THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 265 
 
 good in the matter appears clearly established, whether or 
 not you go in person to the island. Would it not be best 
 to send the doctor's letter to Lord Shaftesbury at once, for 
 perusal ? Its natural and telling style would, I think, pro- 
 duce more effect upon him than any other agency. ... As 
 I write, my conscience, however, keeps intruding with ' But 
 remember Miss Dix's strength ! ' ' 
 
 Spite of the saving clause at the end, it would look 
 as though this letter were a little open to the construc- 
 tion of aiding and abetting an already too incorrigible 
 offender ; particularly as only a few days before its 
 author had written Miss Dix : " Now a word about 
 your symptoms. I don't like them. They certainly 
 indicate great debility of the heart (not your moral 
 organ !), and it behooves you to draw from them the 
 lesson of rest from mental excitement." Still, who 
 after seeing any feat superbly executed, whether by 
 singer, orator, or reformer, can refrain from an en- 
 thusiastic encore ! Indeed, the worst demoralization 
 wrought by military and naval reviews is said to lie 
 in the fact that the sight of such splendidly equipped 
 armaments is sure to inspire the minds of the specta- 
 tors with the longing to see them quit holiday maneu- 
 vering and close in dead-in-earnest fight. 
 
 Be all this as it may, it is clear that, for now six or 
 eight weeks, Miss Dix's mind was steadily concentra- 
 ting on a visit in person to the Channel Islands, and 
 that she was only waiting strength for the undertak- 
 ing. How exuberant were the hopes and resolves 
 that filled her, finds eloquent expression in a letter to 
 her friend, Miss Heath : 
 
 " YORK, EAST RIDING, ENGLAND, June 1, 1855. 
 " MY DEAR ANNIE, - It is four weeks now that I have 
 been quite unable to be out of the house, till a few days this 
 
266 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 week I have gone into the garden in Lindley Murray's 
 chair, Lindley Murray of Grammar and our child-time 
 tearful memories. Mr. Tuke was one of Mr. Murray's 
 executors, and here I see many relics, the family Bible, the 
 garden dial, and the Bath chair. 
 
 " Let me tell you, I am now, though not strong for much 
 exertion, able to go to Green Bank, where I am engaged to 
 pass with my dear friends several weeks, until I am able to 
 go to the Channel Islands to fulfill a duty lately made clear 
 to me, of helping out of dismal dark dungeons those whose 
 only crime is that they are sick insane, and so, feared 
 and tantalized till they are really what the sane would call 
 them, mad men and mad women, capable of any outbreak. 
 I shall see their chains off. I shall take them into the green 
 fields, and show them the lovely little flowers and the blue 
 sky, and they shall play with the lambs and listen to the 
 song of the birds, ' and a little child shall lead them.' This 
 is no romance; this all will be, if I get to the Channel 
 Islands, Jersey and Guernsey, with God's blessing. 
 
 " I was at a very good hotel, but my friends, Dr. and 
 Mrs. Tuke, insisted on my removal to their nice comfortable 
 home, where I am tended as carefully and tenderly as if I 
 were a sister. I have been very feeble, but not helpless, 
 and never cheerless. ... It is now beginning to dawn on 
 me that I may not go to the United States this autumn. I 
 do not see any great use in getting back just as the cold 
 weather advances, unless there is a call to labor. If so, I 
 dare say the strength would come for the ' daily task,' 
 4 daily the manna fell from heaven.' 
 
 " I should like one of your sweet nice letters now and 
 then. Cannot you give me so much pleasure ? " 
 
 To Miss Dix's swift and decisive mind, one thing 
 was clear from Dr. Van Leu ven's letters, namely, that 
 the hue and cry of late raised in England and Scot- 
 land over miscreants carrying on private madhouses 
 for mercenary ends, and with nefarious and criminal 
 
THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 207 
 
 intent, had thoroughly frightened certain of them. 
 The country was fast getting too hot to hold them. 
 So far, so good ! " Rats leave a falling house." 
 Yes, but they go elsewhere to burrow, nest, and defile. 
 Thither, likewise, must they be followed up, repois- 
 oned, and driven out of their holes. It was plain 
 enough what was in the wind. Mr. Pothecary would 
 quietly transport his chain-gang to the seclusion of 
 the Island of Jersey, where, happily, busy-body phi- 
 lanthropists did not intrude to disturb the reposeful 
 scene. There would he have his own paid doctor, to 
 wink at any little departures from the Decalogue. It 
 scarcely needs to be added that Miss Dix laid Mr. 
 Pothecary up in her mind. Meanwhile, her grand 
 aim was to seek to get measures taken, through which 
 the same aegis of government protection should be 
 extended over all, wherever they might be in the 
 United Kingdom. 
 
 Not until near the middle of July was Miss Dix 
 well enough to visit in person the Island of Jersey. 
 This time she went, not as she had entered Scotland, 
 a single-handed woman dependent upon her own re- 
 sources of will and courage, but as one who now had 
 the ear of the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secre- 
 tary, as well as the prestige of parliamentary success. 
 That she acted with her usual dispatch, is evident 
 from a hasty summary of her course of action, written 
 from Jersey to her friend, Dr. Buttolph, as well as 
 from a few flying notes to other friends. The letter 
 to Dr. Buttolph runs thus : 
 
 " 8 QUEEN'S TERRACE, ST. HELUERS, 
 ISLAND OF JERSEY, July 15, 1855. 
 
 "MY DEAR FRIEND, I now proceed to give you a 
 running narrative of my affairs here. Left London, Friday, 
 
268 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 8| P. M. . . . detained off Guernsey by fogs, just escaped 
 the sunken rocks, and landed four and a half hours late at 
 the Jersey pier, on Saturday, 5 P. M. 
 
 " Sunday, at home all day. Monday, 9 A. M., took a 
 carriage and drove with Dr. Van Leuven to the hospital 
 found the insane in a horrid state, naked, filthy, and at- 
 tended by persons of ill character committed to this estab- 
 lishment for vice too gross to admit of their being at large. 
 . . . After faithful inspection of the forty insane in the 
 cells and yards, I drove with my letter of introduction to 
 Government House ; the Governor not at home. I left a 
 note, previously prepared, soliciting an interview at his Ex- 
 cellency's convenience, which I left with Sir George Grey's 
 letter, and proceeded to General Teazel's, they also out. 
 Returned to dinner at Madam R.'s. At 3 o'clock, drove to 
 look at a site for the hospital, les Moraines, the escheated 
 property of an insane woman who died without heirs, from 
 which the Crown derives a handsome annual rent. I ap- 
 proved it for our use, if it could be had a free gift. We then 
 proceeded to visit several insane persons in private families, 
 a sad, very sad scene. During absence, the Governor and 
 Mrs. Love had called, also General and Mrs. Touzel twice, 
 the latter leaving invitation for breakfast on Wednesday, 
 and the Governor for dinner on same day. 
 
 " Went early Wednesday to General Touzel's, had a long 
 conversation wholly on business affairs. At 10 A. M. Gen- 
 eral T. went with me to see the. Governor. First I pre- 
 sented and represented Mr. Pothecary. The Governor re- 
 ceived my evidence in the case, summoned the Attorney 
 General, . . . thanked me for the information, and would 
 resume the subject. Next we took up the Jersey Hospital 
 question. I was promised all government support, but had 
 to fight my way with three dozen members of the States, 
 viz., twelve rectors, twelve yeomen, twelve chief-constables 
 or managers of the Parishes. The Attorney General in- 
 vites me to inspect with him Mr. Pothecary 's residence, 
 
THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 269 
 
 etc. ... I shall tell you some time about this visit. I got 
 some useful information. 
 
 " Thursday, drove into the country, still surveying farms 
 and seeing the scattered insane. In the evening some mem- 
 bers of the committees of the States called. . . . Friday, 
 A. M., other members called, and settled that the full Board 
 of fifteen should be summoned to an extra meeting, if I 
 would attend. ... I consented to remain till the full Board 
 reported, and not present the subject to the Government at 
 Home, if they would do the work without. To-morrow I 
 go with General Touzel to the Treasurer of the States at 
 9 A. M., at 10 meet the Committee of Fifteen, . . . then 
 go to Government House and report progress, and so I will 
 do to you when I know what is the result. 
 " Yours cordially, 
 
 "D. L. Dix." 
 
 There were certain features of partial independence 
 in the relation borne to the General Government of 
 the United Kingdom by the local authorities of the 
 Channel Islands, which made these authorities pe- 
 culiarly anxious to keep matters in their own hands. 
 Of this fear, on their part, of being reported for any 
 criminal neglect, and so, perhaps, having their powers 
 abridged, Miss Dix skillfully availed herself. So long 
 as they would agree to a thorough reformation of a 
 shameful condition of things, it was, as far as she 
 was concerned, a matter of perfect indifference by 
 what machinery it was done. In that case, she would 
 refrain from appealing to Parliament. But either 
 pledge themselves to do this work themselves, or be 
 reported, was the inexorable alternative she would 
 consent to offer. Meanwhile, that she had not for- 
 gotten one little personal matter comes out emphat- 
 ically in a hurried line, addressed to Mrs. Rathbone, 
 of Liverpool. 
 
270 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 " 8 QUEEN'S TERRACE, ST. HELLIERS, July, 1855. 
 " To-day I can only be brief. I am very much occupied. 
 First, I have gotten Mr. Pothecary into the custody of the 
 High Constable of Jersey, by order of the Governor and 
 counsel of the Attorney General. So that business is well 
 settled, and the laws will protect the patients he has so 
 boldly transported. I have seen them. Next, I have got a 
 farm for the hospital that I hope shall be, and the hospital 
 I will call La Maison de 1'Esperance. I shall stay in Jer- 
 sey so long as will settle the question of hospital or no hos- 
 pital." 
 
 One other letter of Miss Dix to Dr. Buttolph, is all 
 that remains of her correspondence from Jersey. It 
 is full of hope at what she feels will be the outcome 
 of her visit : 
 
 " ISLAND OF JERSEY, July 18, 1855. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND, At a full committee of sixteen 
 gentlemen yesterday, the resolution was passed unanimously 
 to build a hospital here for the insane, with the least possi- 
 ble delay. To-morrow, I accompany a sub-committee to 
 search out a fit site and farm, and a structure for 100 pa- 
 tients is to be commenced upon a plan capable of extension 
 at need. ... I want hints, plans, and specifications from 
 you, without cost. Let me hear by return steamer. I 
 must push these people, or the building will not be finished 
 till next century. ... I expect to go to Guernsey on Fri- 
 day, and to England on Monday next." 
 
 A few days more and Miss Dix is back again in 
 England, with her friends at Greenbank, whence she 
 writes to Miss Heath : 
 
 " Safely arrived in the dear old home. I rest and am 
 quiet to my heart's content. Friends are all well and in 
 prosperity, and so I find them drawing toward the latter 
 days in peace, doing good to all as they have opportunity. 
 Gough, the temperance lecturer, has made a great impres- 
 
THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 271 
 
 sion here, and I am glad to see the impulse given to that 
 cause is quickened and quickening. Barnum's book is vile. 
 It has done more to dishonor Americans and the American 
 character here than you would believe possible." 
 
 While thus quietly resting at Greenbank, Dr. Tuke 
 writes to congratulate her on the recent work in Jer- 
 sey : 
 
 " I think you have good reason to be satisfied with the 
 results already apparent, and, with Dr. Van Leuven left on 
 the spot, there is probably less danger of the thing being 
 lost sight of. There will be nothing more needed, I believe, 
 but keeping up a brisk fire." 
 
 In concluding the account of this Island of Jersey 
 episode in Miss Dix's career, it is here the fitting 
 place to state that her own words, " I must push these 
 people, or the building will not be finished till the next 
 century," proved partially prophetic. But only par- 
 tially. The " next century " still lags ten years be- 
 hind, and these words were written thirty-five years 
 ago. Still it was not till 1868, nearly thirteen years 
 after her bringing the Jersey Islanders to a sense of 
 their duty, that a large public asylum was finally com- 
 pleted for the humane and scientific treatment of the 
 insane. 
 
 The nature and degree of the impression produced 
 on the minds of many of Miss Dix's truest friends at 
 this triumphant period of her life can hardly be better 
 expressed than in the warning letter written her just 
 before her departure for Jersey by her aged friend, 
 William Rathbone, of Liverpool. It will be recalled 
 by the reader that it was into Mr. Rathbone's home 
 that she had been taken on her first visit to England 
 in 1837, then apparently marked for early death by 
 
272 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 consumption. The last thing that could have been 
 prophesied of her at that time was the extraordinary 
 career that really lay before her. Indeed, to quote the 
 recollection of one of the sons of the family, written 
 just after Miss Dix's death, in 1887, to Dr. John W. 
 Ward, of Trenton, N J. : " She was at this period an 
 invalid, a very gentle and poetical and sentimental 
 young lady, and, in the then state of her health, with- 
 out any appearance of mental energy or great power 
 of character." Through all the succeeding years of 
 her labors in the United States, her footsteps had 
 been followed with unfailing interest by Mr. and Mrs. 
 Eathbone, and still they were living to witness the 
 wonders she had accomplished in Scotland. Mr. 
 Rathbone's letter was as follows : 
 
 " GREENBACK, Sunday, July 8, 1855. 
 
 "MY DEAR FRIEND, Not being inclined to sleep, I 
 have thought that a quiet hour before breakfast could not 
 be better employed than in saying, God bless my valued 
 and loved friend, and speed her successfully in her progress, 
 so far as is consistent with the scheme of His inscrutable, 
 yet ever beneficent, Providence ! He has tried you in the 
 success of what you have undertaken beyond what I have 
 ever known, or, as far as my recollection serves me, have 
 read of any other person, male or female far beyond that 
 of Howard, Father Mathew, Mrs. Chisholm, or Mrs. Fry. 
 I speak now of the entirety of the success as much as of 
 the extent, and it has not turned your head or, as I believe, 
 led you to forget the source from which your strength has 
 been derived. In the most tender love, therefore, to a faith- 
 ful and self-sacrificing minister to His designs, He may fit 
 the burden to the strength, and not try you too far by al- 
 lowing you to carry the World before you. That your head 
 has not already been, as we say, turned by the magnitude 
 and vast extent of your success, is, as much as the many 
 
THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 273 
 
 other parts of your character, the subject of my respectful 
 admiration. These thoughts have been suggested by the 
 check so far you have met in your efforts to supply the 
 wants of the insane in Newfoundland. 1 . . . 
 
 " Your affectionate friend, 
 
 "W. RATHBONE." 
 
 That Miss Dix's head was not fatally turned by the 
 unexampled series of triumphs of the past fifteen 
 years, was signal proof that her head was at once very 
 strong and very well balanced. The testimonials so 
 profusely showered on her had been the enthusiastic 
 encomiums of great public bodies, of twenty State 
 legislatures, of the Federal Congress of the United 
 States, and finally of the British Parliament. Self- 
 reliance, under such unusual temptations, might read- 
 ily enough leap all barriers and pass over into arro- 
 gant assumption ; the sense of power might easily 
 become inflamed into a dominating passion for the 
 exercise of power ; the sweetness of praise might de- 
 generate into making the pursuit of praise the end of 
 life. 
 
 Constitutionally ambitious of distinction, as is in- 
 stinctive with such commanding personalities, what 
 saved her from such a fate was the intensity of her 
 commiseration with suffering and the fervor of her 
 religious faith. Point out to her a new field of labor, 
 in which she could hope to alleviate the miseries of 
 her fellow-creatures, and in a moment she was eager 
 to turn her back on every remembrance of past achieve- 
 ment, and plunge anew into obscurity and a life of 
 lonely toil and pain. Then as to the essence of her 
 
 1 The Asylum at St. John's, Newfoundland, the long delays attend- 
 ant on the foundation of which had been to Miss Dix a source of con- 
 stant anxiety and disappointment. 
 
274 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 religious faith, and what it taught her. She was a 
 perfectly clear-headed woman, not subject to illusions. 
 She knew, as simple fact of nature, that she " differed 
 from others." She knew that she could do what not 
 one in a million could do. How could she help know- 
 ing it? It was so. All this, her past career had 
 made matter of daily demonstration ; and she, more- 
 over, self-respectfully enjoyed the tribute of compe- 
 tent minds to the range and value of her work. 
 
 Only passingly, however, did she allow these 
 thoughts to engross her. The moment gaping compa- 
 nies sought to lionize her, she flung the attempt off as 
 offensive insult. Habitually there was a deeper depth 
 in her being, retiring into the sanctuary of which, she 
 communed with the momentous question of St. Paul : 
 " Who maketh thee to differ from another, and what 
 hast thou that thou hast not received ? Now, if thou 
 didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst 
 not received it." This was to her the divine voice 
 " casting down imaginations and every vain thought 
 that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God." 
 Downright before man, nay, often terrible to him, 
 when she found him the callous oppressor of the help- 
 less, she was, before God, lowly and self-abnegating, 
 an unprofitable servant. Then, once again, some cry 
 of distress would fall upon her ear, and, in an instant, 
 "forgetting the things that were behind, she was press- 
 ing toward the mark for the prize of the high call- 
 ing " embodied to her in the word : " Inasmuch as ye 
 have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have 
 done it unto me ! " 
 
 Quite impossible is it, however, for any one who 
 sanely estimates the frailty of human nature at its 
 best, to read the private letters and public resolutions 
 
THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 275 
 
 which, at this period, were showered on Miss Dix, 
 without tremblingly recurring to the words of warning 
 from her aged friend, William Rathbone : u God has 
 tried you in the success of what you have undertaken 
 beyond what I have ever known, or, as far as my rec- 
 ollection serves me, have read of any other person, 
 male or female." It is well, therefore, to note from 
 how high and varied quarters these seductive "trials" 
 came. Thus only can a due conception be formed of 
 how much she was really subjected to in that most 
 subtle and dangerous of all forms of temptation, the 
 praise of man. 
 
 First, she had touched the spring of patriotic pride 
 in her own countrymen and countrywomen, then 
 abroad ; how intensely, may be judged from this brief 
 extract from a letter, to a friend in England, of Mrs. 
 E. H. Walsh, wife of the American ambassador to 
 France : 
 
 " VERSAILLES, June 3, 1855. 
 
 " Pray remember me to Miss DJx. If with you, tell her 
 I kiss the hem of her garment, and bless God that our 
 country has produced such a noble heart. She will see the 
 honorable mention of her services by the Earl of Shaftes- 
 bury in Parliament, and Mr. Walsh is about to add his tes- 
 timony to her immense worth, in his correspondence. He 
 regrets very much not having made the acquaintance of 
 Miss Dix. He is right. Such a woman is to be worshiped, 
 if anything human could be worshiped." 
 
 Again, by the Annual Convention of the Associa- 
 tion of Superintendents of American Insane Asylums, 
 held in the summer of 1855, Miss Dix was addressed 
 in terms of honor and love like these : 
 
 " Resolved, That the Secretary of the Association be di- 
 rected to request Miss Dix to favor us at our next meeting 
 
276 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 with an account of her observations and investigations in the 
 countries she is now visiting, the same to be read in private 
 session and be deemed strictly confidential, if in her judg- 
 ment or wish such a course is expedient. 
 
 " Our Association has never met without many grateful 
 recognitions of your invaluable services to humanity, and 
 though, at the late meeting, you and ourselves were much 
 more widely separated than ever before since we became an 
 organized body, I can assure you that you never held a 
 higher place in our most respectful consideration. And 
 while on the one hand we felt much fraternal solicitude on 
 account of your continued feebleness, it on the other af- 
 forded us the liveliest satisfaction to learn that our mother- 
 countrymen have received you with that eminent consider- 
 ation and personal kindness which are so fully accorded to 
 you everywhere at home. 
 
 " We all miss you from the country, and especially do 
 those of us miss the great benefits of your personal encour- 
 agement and cooperation, who are the immediate masters of 
 those * many mansions ' of beneficence, which owe their exist- 
 ence under Providence to the extrordinary success of your 
 appeals to humanity in prosperity in favor of humanity in 
 adversity. We pray for the renewal of your health and 
 strength, and shall hail with gladness your return to the 
 scenes of your widest and most fruitful labors. " . . . . 
 
 " I am, dear Madam, with the highest esteem, 
 " Your friend and servant, 
 
 " J. H. NICHOLS, Secretary." 
 
 Finally, let the two following extracts from the 
 letters of superintendents of large asylums in America, 
 suffice as evidence of the peculiar honor in which alike 
 her sound judgment and personal approval were at 
 this period held. The names of the writers, long at 
 the head of great institutions, are, on grounds of deli- 
 cacy, withheld, though in all probability they would 
 give glad permission to have them used. 
 
THE CHANNEL ISLANDS. 277 
 
 The first extract confines itself to remembrances of 
 past services of Miss Dix, when on one of her visits 
 to an asylum : 
 
 ** It is not, however, by any such visible tokens as books 
 and pictures that your visit will be remembered. Your 
 clear and unmistakable showing of what our defects are, is 
 the greatest boon that you could have conferred. I did 
 not misunderstand those criticisms, so delicately adminis- 
 tered to others, and, at the same time, so applicable to us. 
 Not only has every observation been carefully treasured up 
 in my memory, but every word which could be remembered 
 has been made the text for suggestive commentaries of my 
 own." 
 
 The extract which follows is in a vein rarely adopted 
 by an eminent professional man to a woman, with no 
 other diploma but the diploma of a strong brain, a 
 wide experience, and a great heart : 
 
 " Thus you see that I have not been idle during your 
 absence from the country of upwards of six months, but 
 have diligently striven to do what was demanded of my 
 position, and what I thought you would approve, always 
 feeling a responsibility to your prospective approbation in 
 carrying on a work which is so rightfully yours. If you 
 can say Well done ! ' to what is already done, I shall be 
 glad. Your confidence and friendship are a well of pleasure 
 and a tower of strength to me. I think I appreciate them. 
 I hope they are not misplaced. 
 
 " I am not unaware of your noble and extraordinary 
 achievements in view of the amelioration of the condition of 
 the insane of Scotland. I know that this is a secondary 
 consideration with you, but I think the narrative of that 
 achievement will make one of the brightest pages in the 
 history of the progressive ameliorations of the sufferings of 
 humanity." 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 ON THE CONTINENT. 
 
 IN a letter, already quoted, to Miss Heath, of date, 
 East Riding, England, June 1, 1855, there occurs the 
 first intimation of an intention on the part of Miss 
 Dix to prolong her stay in Europe, and visit the Con- 
 tinent. She is, as she says, " very feeble, but not 
 helpless, and never cheerless," and goes on, " it is 
 now beginning to dawn on me that I may not go to 
 the United States this autumn. I do not see any 
 great use in getting back just as the cold weather ad- 
 vances, unless there is a call to labor. If so, I dare 
 say the strength would come for the daily task, 
 4 Daily the manna fell from heaven.' " 
 
 Accordingly, as the summer advanced, a cordial 
 invitation from the Rathbones, then in Switzerland, to 
 join them as their guest and see the Alps, brought 
 matters to a final decision with her. 
 
 Naturally anxious to do everything for her health 
 and comfort, her kindly friends had strongly urged 
 upon her that, before setting out from England, she 
 should secure the services of a capable woman as 
 maid, a proposition which called from Miss Dix 
 the following characteristic and rather amusing reply : 
 
 " You desire that I should have some one with me, a 
 maid, to save me fatigue and prevent my feeling desolate 
 when alone. A maid would be only in the way, with noth- 
 ing to do; and, for feeling desolate, I never felt desolate in 
 
ON THE CONTINENT. 279 
 
 my life, and I have been much alone in both populous and 
 thinly-settled countries. . . . You are quite right in saying 
 I cannot rest in England any more than in America, now 
 that I know how much suffering calls aloud for relief. I 
 must turn a deaf ear to the cries, and go beyond the reach 
 of the sound of the many afflicted ones, till I have gathered 
 up force to renew should it please God that I work 
 longer the work whereunto I am called." 
 
 To the reader of this biography, already familiar 
 with Miss Dix's habits of travel on her lonely and 
 hazardous journeys through the former comparative 
 wildernesses of the southern and western regions of 
 the United States, journeys on which she always 
 carried with her a private outfit of hammers, screws, 
 wrenches, leather straps, and coils of rope, to be ready 
 for repairs in event of accident, it will easily be 
 conceived that the proposed relation, however kindly 
 suggested, between Miss Dix and a maid would hardly 
 have proved a happy one for either party. Miss Dix 
 would have been distressed for fear of the maid 
 " feeling desolate," while the maid herself would have 
 been frightened out of all propriety at having to stand 
 by and see the thousand and one things her mistress 
 could do for herself, beyond anything it had ever en- 
 tered her humble imagination to conceive. 
 
 The Swiss visit proved to Miss Dix one of the most 
 delightful holiday seasons of her active and crowded 
 life. In after years, she never tired of talking about 
 Chamonix and the Bernese Oberland. Once " be- 
 yond the reach of the sound of the many afflicted 
 ones," she seems to have freely yielded herself to the 
 spell of the magnificent spectacle daily before her 
 eyes. Easily rising, as was constitutional with her, 
 to a state of high spiritual exaltation, she speaks of 
 
280 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 the " snow-clad peaks, mantled with their regal robes 
 of pasture and forest, as a sublime cathedral anthem 
 to God." Along with this, her vivid interest in all 
 natural phenomena next to compassion the strong- 
 est impulse of her nature here found a fruitful field 
 of exercise. The glaciers, the Arctic flora, the geo- 
 logic forces in such active operation, now supplied her 
 with data at least, which in all later years made her 
 an eager and appreciative reader of the studies on 
 these subjects of men like Agassiz, Lyell, and Tyndal. 
 Even, in the midst of the distraction and suffering of 
 the later Civil War, she writes, in 1862 : 
 
 " Your thoughtful care for my gratification in planning 
 that pleasant journey to the Continent has enriched my life 
 for all time. I never find the glorious views of the Alps 
 fade from my mind's eye. A thousand incidents recall and 
 repeat the memory of those grand snow peaks piercing the 
 skies." 
 
 Moreover, the rest and recreation of spirit thus 
 afforded had acted so beneficially on her physical 
 condition that she at last felt justified in carrying out 
 the plan she had for some time been revolving, of an 
 extended tour of observation of the hospitals, insane 
 asylums, and prisons of Europe, including those of 
 Turkey, with, possibly, the accomplishment of the 
 yearned-for visit to Palestine. 
 
 Accompanying the Rathbones on their way back to 
 England, Miss Dix shortly after parted with them and 
 set out for France. She was now once more alone, 
 and, as she liked to be when engrossed in her work, 
 left to her sole individual resources. How meagre in 
 one important respect were these resources, could not 
 but awaken a half-compassionate, half-amused smile 
 
ON THE CONTINENT. 281 
 
 in her devoted friends. Apart from English, she 
 spoke no other language but a little very rudimentary 
 French ; and here she was proposing to face un- 
 daunted the linguistic problems of Italy, Greece, Tur- 
 key, Sclavoiiia, Russia, Germany, Norway, and Hol- 
 land, and that, too, before the days of the "royal 
 road " to philological knowledge later opened by the 
 introduction of polyglot waiters into every inn. Not 
 unlikely, however, in her fondness for heroic stories 
 and her keen sense of their pith and marrow, she had 
 called to mind the legendary account of the mother of 
 St. Thomas a Becket : how, deserted in Syria by her 
 husband, an English crusader, the poor yearning wife 
 had set out from the East, traversed all Europe on 
 foot, and finally rejoined him in his own land on the 
 strength of the two sole words of his language she 
 knew, " a Becket " and " England." Surely, if a 
 lone Moslem woman was equal to such a feat, why 
 might not an American woman, mistress of a little 
 rudimentary French, hope to penetrate the secrets of 
 Greek insane asylums, Turkish bagnios, and Russian 
 prisons. 
 
 Fortunately there remain a number of letters by 
 the help of which Miss Dix's footsteps can be traced 
 through a part of the long journeyings, to which she 
 was now to devote nearly a full year. Those from 
 France are few and unimportant, but as she makes her 
 way to Italy, Greece, and onward to Constantinople, 
 they become more frequent and more eventful : 
 
 To MRS. RATHBONE. 
 "METTRAY, NEAR TOURS, September 3, 1855. 
 
 " Arrived at Rouen at 4 p. M. Visited hospitals for aged 
 men and women, and establishment for juvenile offenders 
 
282 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 at Quilly, five miles out of Rouen, at St. Yon another. 
 Then Paris, then Orleans, then Blois, then Tours, then 
 Mettray. Go next to Nantes, return to Paris." 
 
 To MRS. RATHBONE. 
 
 " PARIS, September, 1855. 
 
 " Yesterday, and only till then, I became possessor of a 
 full Police and Magisterial Sanction under seal, for which 
 nine official parties were to be reached, for entering all 
 the prisons and hospitals of Paris, without exception." 
 
 To MBS. SAMUEL TORREY, BOSTON, U. S. 
 
 "PARIS, November, 1855. 
 
 "I am still entirely occupied in seeing the charitable 
 institutions of this city and environs, which I hope to have 
 done by two weeks more. The very short days and the 
 very dull weather unite to make this slow work. I am 
 obliged to take much rest ; it seems to have become abso- 
 lutely the condition on which I do anything in the pursuit 
 of my vocation. The vast multiplication of all sorts of hos- 
 pitals for all sorts of complaints and infirmities, and for all 
 ages, tells of the different condition of family life from that 
 we are used to observe. I quite comprehend the turbulence 
 and crimes of revolutionary periods, especially those move- 
 ments in which women have been conspicuous for trampling 
 on all laws human and divine." 
 
 To DR. BUTTOLPH, TRENTON, U. S. 
 
 u PARIS, December 3, 1855. 
 
 " I should say that all the charitable institutions of Paris, 
 liberally supported as they are by government, possess in a 
 large measure great excellencies, but two radical universal 
 defects, at least, strike the most casual observer. The want 
 of ventilation is the chiefest ill, and quite explains the amaz- 
 ing mortality, apart from the well-known experimental 
 methods of treatment by the Internes, resident students. 
 In all these establishments, associated with other employees, 
 
ON THE CONTINENT. 283 
 
 are found Sisters of Charity, and nuns of various orders. 
 Some of them are very self-denying, not many. They are 
 never over-tasked, except possibly in some period of serious 
 epidemic. As for the priests, they should for the most 
 part occupy places in houses of correctional discipline, and 
 enlightening cultivation." 
 
 It was not until the second week in January that 
 Miss Dix, after completing her examination of the 
 charitable institutions of France, was ready to leave 
 for Italy. The first letter from there bears date, 
 Genoa, March 3, 1856 : - 
 
 To MRS. RATHBONE. 
 
 " GENOA, ITALY, March 3, 1856. 
 
 "This morning I spent in the hospital for the insane, 
 and find much to commend, with some things to disap- 
 prove ; but after seeing that at Rome, I regard all other 
 institutions in this country with comparative favor. ... I 
 left Naples, Rome, and Florence with regret that I could not 
 have had leisure to observe the works of art, ancient and 
 modern, which have great attraction, but I saw a good deal, 
 considering the claims of hospitals and the short time I 
 spent in each place. I get daily news from Constantinople 
 which moves my sympathy for the poor insane of Turkey. 
 Innovations in usages are now fast going on there, so we 
 may hope the hospitals will share in the advance of civiliza- 
 tion." 
 
 Three days later, the above letter is followed by 
 one to Mrs. Samuel Torrey, in which a backward 
 glance is thrown by Miss Dix over the objects that 
 had engaged her since her arrival in Italy : 
 
 To MBS. SAMUEL TORREY. 
 
 "GENOA, March 6, 1856. 
 
 " I left Marseilles so suddenly for Italy the second week 
 of January, and since have been so wholly and fatiguingly 
 
284 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 occupied, that all letter- writing is very seriously interfered 
 with. ... I was but thirteen days in Naples. The bad 
 weather which I had experienced during all the autumn in 
 France followed me there. I found at Rome a hospital for 
 the insane so very bad, that I set about the difficult work of 
 reform at once, and during the fourteen days I was there, 
 so far succeeded as to have Papal promises and Cardinal 
 assurances, etc., of immediate action in remedying abuses 
 and supplying deficiencies. I have promised some of the 
 Roman citizens and some of the physicians to return there 
 in two months, if no advance is made in the object of my 
 late efforts, so that coming to the United States in June is, 
 I fear, quite set aside. I also wish a new hospital in Flor- 
 ence. This has been contemplated by the Commune of Flor- 
 ence, but the onerous taxation consequent on the Austrian 
 invasion has impoverished the city. You need not be much 
 surprised to hear of me in Constantinople. I have for a 
 long time felt distressed at the horrid stories of suffering in 
 the prisons and hospitals there ; and yet, till quite lately, I 
 have not had a thought of personally undertaking anything in 
 that quarter ; but recent political and social changes, joined 
 with information had from Sir Charles and Lady Hamilton, 
 recently returned from the East, have led me to believe 
 that something might be commenced in the way of reform. 
 . . . My work seems to me to be indicated by Providence, 
 and I cannot conscientiously turn away from attempting, as 
 far as possible, to alleviate miseries wherever I find them." 
 
 Only a day after the dispatch of the preceding let- 
 ter, Miss Dix writes as follows, from Turin : 
 
 To MRS. RATHBONE. 
 
 " TURIN, ITALY, March 7, 1856. 
 
 " I left Genoa at 11 A. M. and arrived safely after a very 
 pleasant journey. ... It is just as easy traveling alone 
 here as it is in England or America. I now regret I had 
 not sooner tried it." 
 
ON THE CONTINENT. 285 
 
 Next day : " The General Hospitals here, as in Italy at 
 large, are very good, but that in this city for the insane is 
 so bad that I feel quite heart-sick. I drove to the hospital 
 in the country, very bad. Then I drove to the hospital 
 within the walls, made an appointment with the chief doctor 
 for to-morrow, and with the Protestant minister, shall try to 
 represent the .importance of entire change for the patients. 
 I do not think it will do much good, but it is my duty to try. 
 I shall appeal in writing to the king. Leave for Milan to- 
 morrow." 
 
 Later : " My plans appear to be about as stable as spring 
 breezes. After the meeting touching hospital affairs yester- 
 day, and which only served to establish my opinion of the 
 melancholy defects of the institutions in question, I was in- 
 vited to visit to day the five prisons of Turin, and to join 
 in my application for hospital reform some remonstrance 
 against the pernicious arrangement of these establishments. 
 I have not to convince officers of government alone, but to 
 make stand against the priests, who interfere with every- 
 thing that is done or to be done. I never felt anything 
 more difficult than this work in Italy. In Rome I found 
 government and the priestly office united, and the very 
 shame of foreign and Protestant interposition quickened 
 them to action or promise rather than humanity ; but in 
 Florence, Genoa, and here, it is a fact that changes are 
 coming over the old rule, and one must wait a little where 
 so much is doing and to be done. I will now make no more 
 plans for going or returning, so many things constantly oc- 
 cur to change or hinder my intentions." 
 
 From the above letters it is evident that in Rome 
 itself Miss Dix felt she had struck upon a worse con- 
 dition of things in the treatment of the insane than 
 anywhere else in Italy. Even in Naples, and under 
 the rule of King " Bomba," she had found an asylum 
 worthy of warm tributes of praise ; but here, under 
 

 286 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 the very shadow of the Vatican, the condition of the 
 lunatic was so hopelessly wretched as to convince her 
 that this must be her field of immediate energetic ac- 
 tion. As it will be necessary to enlarge to some extent 
 on the work she accomplished in Rome, it is a satisfac- 
 tion to find a letter, expressive of her personal feeling 
 on the subject, addressed by her from Florence to her 
 friends, Dr. and Mrs. Buttolph, of Trenton, N. J. 
 
 To DR. AND MRS. BUTTOLPH. 
 
 " FLORENCE, ITALY, 1856. 
 
 " In Naples I did nothing for hospitals ; indeed, strange 
 as it is, I found a better institution there for the insane than 
 has been founded in all southern and central Italy. In 
 Rome things were quite different. 6,000 priests, 300 
 monks, 3,000 nuns, and a spiritual sovereignty joined with 
 the temporal powers had not assured for the miserable 
 insane a decent, much less an intelligent, care. I could not 
 bear to know this, see this, and do nothing. An appeal to 
 the Pope which involved care, patience, time, and negotia- 
 tion has secured promises. Land is bought (at least I had 
 the assurances of the officers of state that it was that day 
 purchased), and plans are prepared. Now if these are not 
 carried out, I do not return to the United States but go to 
 Rome and stay till they do that which is needed. . . . Since 
 coining to Florence five days ago, I find a bad hospital here, 
 and mountains of difficulty in the way of remedy for serious 
 ills. I have the idea of removing these mountains, and see- 
 ing if Protestant energy cannot work what Catholic powers 
 fail to undertake." 
 
 It will readily be seen that it was a work of a very 
 delicate nature which Miss Dix now found on her 
 hands. She was a foreigner, a Protestant, and a 
 woman ; and yet, with all these serious disabilities, she 
 now saw it in the light of inexorable duty to seek an 
 
0.V THE CONTINENT. 287 
 
 audience of the Supreme Pontiff of the great Roman 
 Catholic Church, and, in a way not to offend his sensi- 
 bilities, but graciously to win his favor, clearly to 
 apprise the " Anointed Vicar of Christ on Earth," 
 that in the light of modern knowledge and humanity, 
 the insane asylum of the Holy City was a disgrace 
 and a scandal. The audience must be, moreover, no 
 mere ceremonial interview, with graceful interchange 
 of bows and genuflections, but a direct encounter be- 
 tween the two grand rival Infallibilities confronting 
 one another in the Nineteenth Century, the Infalli- 
 bility of Rome, and the infallibility of Enlightened 
 Reason. That in the realm of the new revelation of 
 the humane and rational treatment of insanity which 
 had now broken upon the world, she stood a divinely- 
 commissioned champion of Moral Reason, and was 
 backed by an authority of science so irresistible that 
 " whatsoever it should bind on earth, should be bound 
 in heaven," of all this she felt no more question 
 than Pope Hildebrand, when at Canossa he confronted 
 the imperial power of Henry IV. with the sacerdotal 
 power embodied in his own personality. No such 
 thing was there, no such thing could there be, as an 
 infallibly-good bad insane asylum. 
 
 At the same time, there could be no employment 
 here of Hildebrand tactics. The weapons of the 
 modern warfare of humane science are not of the flesh, 
 but of the spirit. They demand no trophies in the 
 shape of humiliated defiers of their dogmas. But 
 they do demand, with more than Papal authority, 
 absolute and unconditional submission, and that their 
 "Yea shall be Yea, and their Nay, Nay," in "sa3cula 
 saeculorum." So now, if a new triumph for the out- 
 cast and miserable was to be won, it could come alone 
 
288 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 of convincing the judgment and touching the heart of 
 Pope Pius IX. 
 
 As Miss Dix herself wrote, "The appeal to the 
 Pope involved care, patience, time, and negotiation." 
 Fortunately, early in her attempts she had secured 
 the powerful assistance of Cardinal Antonelli, who 
 entered warmly into her scheme, and whose clear-cut 
 intellectual force made a life-long impression on her. 
 Alike as an astute diplomatist, and as almost the last 
 survival of the old regime of cardinals, who contrived 
 to unite the freedom from earthly ties of the celibate 
 state with a large family of children, perhaps too openly 
 permitted to avow their parentage on the Corso, 
 Cardinal Antonelli has come in for his full share of 
 censorious criticism. But it is a curious fact that, to 
 the end of her days, Miss Dix whose standard in 
 such matters was inexorable would never in her 
 presence suffer a word to be said against him. He 
 was the most enlightened, humane, and merciful man, 
 she insisted, she had found in Rome, a man who 
 spared himself no pains to urge the plea of the 
 wronged and suffering. 
 
 Unfortunately, no letter or paper of any kind re- 
 mains that might serve to recall the particulars of the 
 interview Miss Dix ultimately obtained with Pope 
 Pius IX. That it was one which, from the circum- 
 stances of the case, the supreme spiritual authority 
 of the Pontiff, the beautiful benignity of the man, and 
 the far-reaching consequences it might entail, must 
 have called out her full resources, there can be no 
 question. All that can be gathered to-day to illus- 
 trate the scene must come from the memories of cer- 
 tain of Miss Dix's still surviving friends, to whom, in 
 those rare hours of intimacy in which she suffered her 
 
ON THE CONTINENT. 289 
 
 habitual reticence about herself to be broken through, 
 she told the story. 
 
 She found Pius IX. benignity itself. Happily at 
 home in English, nothing of the power of the plea 
 was lost by having to pass through the medium of an 
 interpreter. He listened with fixed attention to her 
 recital, and was painfully shocked at its details, prom- 
 ising her immediately to make a personal examination 
 and appointing a second audience at a later date. A 
 day or two after, he drove unannounced to the insane 
 asylum, and taking its officials unawares inspected the 
 wards himself. Then, at the second audience granted 
 Miss Dix, he freely acknowledged his distress at the 
 condition of things he had found, and warmly thanked 
 her, a woman and a Protestant, for crossing the seas 
 to call to his attention as Chief Shepherd of the Sheep 
 these cruelly-entreated members of his flock. " And 
 did you really kneel down and kiss his hand ? " were 
 wont to ask some of her ultra-Protestant and Quaker 
 hearers. " Most certainly, I did," she would reply. 
 " I revered him for his saintliness." 
 
 And yet impressive, and perhaps entirely unex- 
 pected, as this scene and its sequel may appear to the 
 majority of Protestant readers, their nai've surprise is 
 simply a measure of their ignorance of the grand tra- 
 dition of the Roman Catholic Church. Through all 
 the centuries of Christendom, has that marvelous re- 
 ligious organization known how to interpret, utilize, 
 and open a career to exceptional women, after a fash- 
 ion that Protestantism has never yet mastered. That, 
 for example, the " Babylonian Captivity " of the 
 church was brought to an end, and the restoration of 
 the Papacy from Avignon to the Eternal City finally 
 effected, by the clear insight and passionate pleading 
 
290 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 of a woman, Catherine of Siena, is something which the 
 Roman Catholic Church has never hesitated proudly 
 and gratefully to avow. Such rare and exceptional 
 combinations in women of mystical fervor of faith with 
 commanding practical ability, it has not only known 
 how to avail itself of for founding new and im- 
 mensely effective religious orders in all lands, but, af- 
 ter death, it has canonized the representatives of them 
 as saints ; thus dowering them with a supernatural 
 power over generations to come greater even than the 
 natural power they exerted over their own genera- 
 tions. 
 
 In point of fact, a woman of precisely the same 
 stamp was standing there before Pius IX. in the Vat- 
 ican, February, 1856. Had she been born in 1515 in 
 still medieval and imaginatively-religious Spain, in- 
 stead of in 1802 in rational, practical New England, 
 then, just as inevitably as in the case of St. Theresa, 
 would she have founded great conventual establish- 
 ments in a Malaga, Valladolid, Toledo, Segovia, and 
 Salamanca, as she in reality did great asylums for the 
 insane in a Baltimore, Raleigh, Columbia, Nashville, 
 Lexington, or Halifax. Equally too would she have 
 ruled them as abbess. Precisely the same characteris- 
 tics marked her, the same absolute religious conse- 
 cration, the same heroic readiness to trample under 
 foot the pains of illness, loneliness, and opposition, the 
 same intellectual grasp of what a great reformatory 
 work demanded. 
 
 St. Theresa was nourished from childhood on the 
 miraculous legends of the saints, and breathed all her 
 life an atmosphere of supernatural marvel and por- 
 tent. Dorothea Lynde Dix was nourished on the de- 
 vout humanitarianism of Channing, and breathed the 
 
ON THE CONTINENT. 291 
 
 quickening air of a time just awakening to enthusias- 
 tic faith in the amelioration of human misery through 
 the beneficent discoveries of science. And so, very 
 curious, historically, is it to notice, in the parallel of 
 these two kindred founders of great institutions, the 
 change of view time works in religious faiths. The 
 acute pain in the side which through life clung to each 
 of them, and which came in each instance of pulmo- 
 nary weakness, was in the first case believed to have 
 been a stroke delivered by an angel who pierced her 
 with a lance tipped with fire, and in the other though 
 equally tipped with fire devoutly accepted as the 
 ordained action of those immutable physical laws of 
 God, through which He works out the eternal counsel 
 of His will. 
 
 Very great, then, was the mistake made by a woman 
 of such genius as George Eliot, when, in her attempt 
 in Middlemarch, to portray the inevitable fate in this 
 shallow, material Nineteenth Century, of a modern 
 St. Theresa, she selected as the type of such a nature, 
 a sentimental woman like Dorothea Brooke, and as the 
 pitiful outcome of all such soaring aspirations, evolved 
 the story of her marriage with the acrid bookworm 
 Casaubon, whom she had fancifully mistaken for a pro- 
 found scholar and a man of sublime aims. " Doro- 
 thea," comments George Eliot, " with all her eagerness 
 to know the truth of life, retained very childlike ideas 
 about marriage. She felt sure tliat she would have 
 accepted the ' Judicious Hooker,' if she had been born 
 in time to save him from that wretched mistake he 
 made in matrimony ; or John Milton when his blind- 
 ness had come on ; or any of the other great men 
 whose odd habits it would have been glorious piety to 
 endure." 
 
292 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 Now, retrospective visions on the part of gentle and 
 aspiring young ladies of the blissful changes that 
 would have been wrought in the fate of departed men 
 of genius, had they themselves only happened to be 
 Mrs. Richard Hooker or Mrs. John Milton, are no 
 doubt very charming and, had they come in time, 
 would have spared much domestic misery. Still, such 
 romantic visions are at the last remove from any kind 
 of proof that the young ladies in question have the 
 attributes of a St. Theresa. " A new Theresa," says 
 George Eliot, " will hardly have the opportunity of 
 reforming a conventual life, any more than a new 
 Antigone will spend her heroic piety in daring all for 
 the sake of a brother's burial ; the medium in which 
 their ardent deeds took shape is forever gone." " No, 
 the medium is forever here ! " say the real St. The- 
 resas. " In one age, it assumes one shape ; in an- 
 other, another. He that has eyes to see, let him 
 see ! " 
 
 To return, however, to the audiences granted Miss 
 Dix in the Vatican by Pope Pius IX. The first out- 
 come of them was most assuring to her. And yet, 
 though confident the Pope would remain faithful to his 
 own pledges, and relying on Cardinal Antonelli as a 
 tower of strength, she still read with perfect clear- 
 ness the character of the ecclesiastical bureaucracy of 
 Rome, and understood how many an interest of igno- 
 rance, superstition, and private greed would lift its 
 outcry against every shape of innovation. She there- 
 fore stood ready as has already been seen in pre- 
 viously quoted letters from Florence and Genoa to 
 return at any moment to Rome, and renew the battle. 
 It was, however, a great relief before long to learn 
 that an especial physician had been sent to France to 
 
ON THE CONTINENT. 293 
 
 study the methods of the best asylums there, and that 
 a tract of land near the Villa Borghese had actually 
 been purchased, as well as, still later on, to be as- 
 sured by an American friend in Rome, Dr. Joseph 
 Parish, that " preliminary steps had already been 
 taken by the Pope toward the erection of a new asylum 
 on the most approved plan." An account of a visit 
 to this subsequently-erected asylum, written Miss Dix 
 many years later, by Mrs. J. P. Bancroft, is here sub- 
 joined : 
 
 " NAPLES, February 7, 1876. 
 
 " MY DEAR Miss Dix, I have always remembered 
 with lively interest the accounts you gave us, many years 
 ago, of the efforts you made in Rome to reach the insane, 
 and improve their condition. This recollection gave me 
 more than ordinary desire, while in Rome, to see the asy- 
 lum which was erected by Pius IX., and which perhaps 
 your efforts may have originated in his mind. So I devoted 
 a day to a visit at the Institution. 
 
 " I found ready access to the principal Medical Director, 
 and joined him in a circuit of ail parts of the houses and 
 grounds. It is a department of the General Hospital, San 
 Spiritoj and has gone under the control of the Italian Gov- 
 ernment since the occupation. . . . There are 650 patients, 
 made up of paying patients and dependents, the latter be- 
 ing far the larger number. . . . From what I saw I believe 
 the management is inspired by the spirit of the times. But 
 in the realization of results, two obstacles are in the way, 
 poverty and lack of the best experience. While these exist, 
 we can never expect the conditions found in English and 
 American Asylums. ... I think their ideas and demands 
 as to personal tidiness and cleanliness are much more lax 
 than among the English-speaking peoples. ... I was not 
 so much surprised at the manner in which I saw them take 
 their meals, when I observed along the streets the poorer 
 class eating in their homes. . . . Italy is fearfully poor, and 
 
294 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 the people are taxed to the last extreme ; and, with this and 
 all the expense of the military system she feels obliged to 
 keep up, I cannot see how very great improvement can be 
 looked for at present in the management of their public in- 
 stitutions of charity. . . . There can be no question that a 
 great revolution in the care and treatment of the insane 
 was effected by the organization of this present Institution, 
 in comparison with former methods. The superintendent 
 manifests great interest in his work, and I could not but 
 regret his lack of means to make the house as pleasant and 
 inviting as money might make it. ... 
 
 " Very cordially your friend, 
 
 "J. P. BANCROFT." 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 STILL ON THE CONTINENT. 
 
 ONCE away from Italy, which she left early in 
 March, 1856, the first traces of Miss Dix on her travel 
 eastward, are met in two time-stained letters, the first 
 addressed to Dr. Buttolph, in the United States, the 
 second to Mr. William Kathbone, in England. Writ- 
 ten while her steamer was lying at anchor in the har- 
 bor of the Island of Corfu, they furnish glimpses of 
 the diligence with which she was pursuing her ap- 
 pointed work. 
 
 To DR. H. A. BUTTOLPH. 
 
 " You will not be more surprised than I am that I find 
 traveling alone perfectly easy. I get into all the hospitals 
 and all the prisons I have time to see or strength to ex- 
 plore. I take no refusals, and yet I speak neither Italian, 
 German, Greek, or Sclavonic. I have no letter of introduc- 
 tion, and know no persons en route. I found at Trieste a 
 very bad hospital for the insane. Fortunately a physician 
 attached to the suite of the Archduke Maximilian has prom- 
 ised the intervention of government at Trieste and assured 
 me that all the institutions of Austria shall be open to my 
 visits if I come to Vienna." . . . 
 
 To MB. WILLIAM RATHBONE. 
 
 " ISLAND OF CORFU, March 27, 1850. 
 
 " I have just time, since running on shore to see the 
 prisons and hospitals, to report myself briefly to you and 
 Mi's. R. Providence graciously protects me, and I am in 
 
296 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 no respects thus far impeded in my great objects of seeing 
 the prisons and hospitals. By rare good fortune, I had an 
 introduction to the physician of the Archduke Maximilian 
 at Trieste, and made a move for a reform and renewal of 
 the hospitals for the insane in that part of the Austrian 
 Dominions ; also had the promise of the entre'e to all the 
 institutions of the Empire, if I went to Vienna. When the 
 boat arrived last night, I went on shore as early as I could 
 do anything, took a cab and drove to the Greek institutions ; 
 saivall!" 
 
 Five days later, as she sits awaiting the arrival of 
 a steamer at Piraeus, the port of Athens, another 
 glimpse is caught of the traveler, and of the way in 
 which she has been spending the intervening time. 
 Within close sight of Athens, and still, in her letter, 
 not the most distant allusion to the Acropolis or the 
 Parthenon, or Phidias, nor even to the imperative 
 need of raising money for the exhumation of statues 
 which would reveal a new ideal of the glory of the 
 human form! And yet never a soul that breathed, 
 more passionately bent on the exhumation, from be- 
 neath the accumulations of ages of cruelty and neglect, 
 of the divine archetypal idea of man as created in the 
 image of God ! 
 
 As an illustration of the power of a dominating 
 purpose in the case of one whose mind was naturally 
 so active, this absence of any reference to places, 
 events, and personalities, with whose inspiring story 
 she had been familiar from childhood, and the bare 
 hope of ever standing on whose soil would, under other 
 conditions, have intensely excited her, is certainly very 
 striking. " I must work the work that is given me to 
 do, and how is my soul straitened until it be accom- 
 plished," was unquestionably her feeling, as it was 
 
STILL ON THE CONTINENT. 297 
 
 equally the feeling of John Howard. Like him, she 
 stood resolutely on her guard against the intrusion of 
 all side issues, however fascinating. Embarked on a 
 mission of mercy, her limited store of strength must 
 be wholly consecrated to that. And yet those who in 
 later years listened to her, on those rare occasions on 
 which she talked of her travels, said that her eyes 
 seemed to have been ever on the alert and to have 
 taken in everything. 
 
 To MRS. WILLIAM RATHBONE. 
 
 " PIRAEUS, GREECE, April 2, 1856. 
 
 " I am waiting for the arrival of the steamer which came 
 around the Peloponnesus. I came by the Isthmus that I 
 might land at Ancona and the Ionian Islands to see the 
 hospitals. I reached Athens at dark last night ; left at noon 
 to resume my sea voyage. The weather is intensely cold. 
 Mt. Parnassus is as white as Mt. Blanc. . . . This hour ar- 
 rives a French steamer with the blessed news of Peace. 1 
 .... We give devout thanks that the hours of warfare 
 are ended, but how long it must be before the wounds which 
 have been inflicted on social and domestic happiness are 
 healed or forgotten. ... I hoped after crossing the Isthmus 
 to visit Corinth, but the captain would not consent to my 
 leaving the protection of the powerful guard of one hundred 
 soldiers, which surrounded the transport carriages. As the 
 danger was shown to be real, I readily gave up my previous 
 wish. A fierce band of robbers attacked the carriage twenty 
 days since, and succeeded in getting all the luggage and 
 money, of which a large sum was being conveyed for paying 
 the soldiers at Athens. So in each carriage sat an armed 
 soldier, while at the side, in close file, rode a bodyguard who 
 looked quite able to protect a much more valuable company. 
 By way of adding interest to the scene, videttes were gal- 
 
 1 The end of the Crimean War. 
 
298 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 loping hither and thither, and hidden in the bushes at inter- 
 vals were parties of soldiers. And yet these precautions 
 are declared to be necessary for ordinary security. ... I 
 have no idea how long I shall be in Constantinople, but 
 everywhere I hear the most sad accounts of the insane 
 there, on all the islands, and in Asia Minor. I see if I can 
 only secure something for Constantinople, it is all I ought 
 to attempt, and of that I am not sanguine at all. I feel 
 that Miss Nightingale will have a great work still in the 
 East. God bless her efforts ! " 
 
 By April 10, Miss Dix had reached Constantinople, 
 and in a letter of that date gives her first impressions 
 on landing. 
 
 To MBS. WILLIAM RATHBONE. 
 
 " CONSTANTINOPLE, April 10, 1856. 
 
 " I made most of the landings en route. At Smyrna I 
 found a good English hospital for sailors, and also one for 
 the Dutch and Greeks. I found my way to these by no- 
 ticing the flagstaffs before landing, and on the way visit- 
 ed several Greek and Armenian churches and the chief 
 mosque. . . . The officers on the steamship were civil. 
 My only associates were two physicians, one an Italian 
 belonging to the ship, the other an Austrian from Vienna, 
 highly educated, and of most benevolent disposition. He 
 was on his way to Jerusalem, to execute the will of a lady 
 in Vienna, who had given 50,000 florins to establish a 
 school for poor children in the Holy City. 
 
 " Taking a boat, I was rowed to a landing at Pera, or 
 rather Galata, and toiled over or through streets that seemed 
 only opened to serve as public drains. . . . After breakfast, 
 I stepped into a caique with two rowers, speaking the 
 words < Hospital ! Scutari ! ' and in half an hour landed 
 at the wharf of upper Scutari. I paid and discharged the 
 boatmen, and, inquiring of an English sailor the way to the 
 nurse's quarter, proceeded thither. Miss Nightingale was 
 
STILL ON THE CONTINENT. 299 
 
 absent, having been a month at Balaklava, where there is 
 much sickness of the English and French troops. I went 
 over the chief hospital, which was in excellent order, and 
 chiefly filled with convalescents. There was another large 
 establishment, but I could not walk to and over it, for by 
 this time my feet had become too painful to allow of further 
 exercise. I shall proceed to see the hospitals for the insane 
 as soon as possible. Meanwhile, I do not allow my hopes 
 to rise. ... I see the first difficulty is the want of persons 
 to execute the trusts of an institution. But time must 
 show." 
 
 As it was with sad forebodings of finding in Con- 
 stantinople a state of unexampled neglect and misery 
 in the condition of the insane, that Miss Dix had jour- 
 neyed there, it is cheering in her next letter to read 
 how happily, in some instances at least, she was on 
 personal inspection undeceived. The visit occurred 
 shortly after the close of the Crimean War. It had 
 been her ardent desire to come into intimate relations 
 with Miss Florence Nightingale, then completing her 
 work of mercy in the East. But neither in Constan- 
 tinople, nor later, on the return to England, was it 
 granted to those two kindred spirits to see one an- 
 other face to face. 
 
 To MBS. WILLIAM RATHBOXE. 
 
 " CONSTANTINOPLE, April 29, 1856. 
 
 " I was greatly surprised and much gratified to find in 
 Constantinople a very well directed hospital for the insane 
 in the Turkish quarter, and I failed to discover in either 
 Stamboul or its suburbs any examples of abuse and barbar- 
 ous usage of this class, so I proceeded to the Greek and 
 Armenian-Christian hospitals, in which, I regret to say, I 
 found very mistaken supervision of all the patients, chains, 
 neglect, and absence of all curative treatment. 
 
300 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 " I think the means I took for the remedy of these 
 abuses will avail to correct them generally in the vicinity of 
 the Turkish Capital, but in the provinces I apprehend that 
 great evils will long exist. . . . The insane of Constantino- 
 ple are in a far better condition than those of Rome or 
 Trieste, and in some respects better cared for than in Tu- 
 rin, Milan, or Ancona. All the patients were Turks, fifty- 
 two men, twenty women, eighteen servants and attendants, 
 three physicians, one resident director, and night watchmen. 
 The hospital was founded by Solyman, the Magnificent, and 
 the provisions for the comfort and pleasure of the patients, 
 including music, quite astonished me. The superintendent 
 proposes improvements. I had substantially little to sug- 
 gest, and nothing to urge ! ! ! 
 
 "D. L. D." 
 
 All that remains in Miss Dix's handwriting in the 
 way of narrative of her visit to Constantinople has now 
 been given. It is a satisfaction, however, to be able 
 to supplement her own too meagre account with the 
 personal recollections of this now far-away time, em- 
 braced in a letter to her biographer from Dr. Cyrus 
 Hamlin, D. D., LL. D., then President of Robert Col- 
 lege, Constantinople. 
 
 ' LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS. August 7, 1889. 
 
 " I regret to say that I have found nothing of my valued 
 correspondence with Miss Dix in 1856 and at other times. 
 I can therefore only give you my impressions of her and 
 her work. She remained a part of the time a welcome 
 guest in my house during her visit to Constantinople, in 1856- 
 My residence was too far from the great city to make it al- 
 ways convenient, but she came and went at pleasure. She 
 had two objects in view, the hospitals and prisons. To these 
 she seemed wholly devoted, although her conversation and 
 her interest embraced a vast variety of subjects. She had 
 
STILL ON THE CONTINENT. 301 
 
 traveled extensively, knew very well the official world and 
 its peculiarities, and was acquainted with ' men and things.' 
 She often entertained us with the peculiarities of certain of- 
 ficials with whom her work led her to have intercourse. 
 / " The most annoying to her were the indifferent. The 
 least annoying were the gruff. She could generally come 
 round that. But the excessively polite she had learned to 
 fear. Her criticisms were always in a kindly spirit, and 
 she clearly saw the humorous as well as the sorrowful in hu- 
 \ man life. 
 
 " She visited, I think, all the prisons and hospitals of the 
 great city. These are very numerous, as every nationality, 
 the Armenians, Greeks, Catholic-Armenians, and Turks, 
 has its own. I obtained admission for her to the great 
 Greek hospital of Ballocli, under very favorable circumstan- 
 ces. She was treated very politely. Also in the great Ar- 
 menian hospital. In both these she found departments for 
 the insane, with the management of which she was not 
 pleased. The English prison called forth the severest criti- 
 cism. Dr. Hayland, who had the medical care, was not 
 pleased with her intrusion. She thought to find it the best, 
 and she pronounced it the worst. 
 
 " I think with the exception of the Turkish penal prison, 
 the Bagnio, she gained access to all the institutions she 
 wished to visit. The Turkish debtors' prison she found 
 nauseous for filth and want of ventilation. ( But her great 
 surprise was the Turkish insane hospital. The treatment 
 of the Turkish insane was once one of the horrors of Con- 
 stantinople. Travelers generally tried their rhetoric upon 
 it without any aid but their imaginations. Miss Dix had 
 read these high-wrought descriptions of expelling the devils 
 of insanity by alternate tortures and generous treatment, 
 and was prepared for anything. 
 
 ** She found, instead, order, cleanliness, light, ventilation, 
 clothing, diet, which left nothing to be desired. Employ- 
 ments also and diversions were equally admirable. She 
 came home at night joyful. She said ' I have found one 
 
302 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 institution in Constantinople the very best, where I thought 
 to find the very worst.' 
 
 " The explanation is this : A young Turk of wealth and 
 station was educated at Paris. While there, he became in- 
 terested in the famous French Hospital for the Insane. He 
 studied the system. He was admitted into every part of 
 the great establishment, and was kindly aided to prepare 
 himself for what he felt to be his ' mission,' to establish the 
 like for his own people. This is the only instance I have 
 known of a young Turk's preparing himself for usefulness 
 by a Parisian education. In every case she addressed a 
 communication to the heads and managers of the institu- 
 tions, pointing out what seemed to her desirable changes, 
 and giving them reports and pamphlets containing much 
 useful information for their consideration. 
 
 " Miss Dix made the impression at Constantinople of a 
 person of culture, judgment, self-possession, absolute fearless- 
 ness in the path of duty, and yet a woman of refinement 
 and true Christian philanthrophy. I remember her with 
 the profoundest respect and admiration, and regret that all 
 my correspondence with her is lost. She was equally wor- 
 thy with Elizabeth Fry to be called the ' female Howard.' 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 "CYRUS HAMLIN." 
 
 On leaving Constantinople, Miss Dix took passage 
 up the Danube to Pesth and Vienna. It is while the 
 steamer, " Franz Joseph," is making a landing in As- 
 sora, Hungary, that she writes the following letter to 
 her friend Miss Heath : 
 
 " ASSOKA, HUNGARY, May 9, 1856. 
 
 " MY DEAR ANNIE, Look on your map of Europe, and 
 you may trace my route from Venice, whence I last wrote, 
 to Trieste, Ancona, Molfetta, Brindisi, Corfu, Cephalonia, 
 Zante, Patras, Missolonghi, Mycense, Corinth, Piraeus, 
 Athens, Syra, Teos, Sangras, Mytilene, Gallipoli, Marmora, 
 Constantinople, Bosphorus, Varna, Saluna, mouth of the 
 
STILL ON THE CONTINENT. 303 
 
 Danube, Galatz, Balaka, Assora, whence the boat is bound 
 up this grand river to Pesth and Vienna. Why I have 
 made this long route would now occupy too much time to 
 relate, but I hope to meet you face to face, and speak of 
 these and many more subjects. 
 
 " I have the strong hope that I shall not need to return 
 to Rome, for a letter received from my banker there ac- 
 quainted me that the Pope has listened to my remonstrance 
 and intercession, and restored Dr. Guildini to the charge of 
 the hospital, which augurs well for the residue of my peti- 
 tion, and the fulfillment of the distinct assurances I received 
 before I left Rome. I have as far as at present practicable 
 effected the objects of my visit to Constantinople, but it 
 has opened to me work for the future. So far as the Chris- 
 tian hospitals are concerned, those of the Mahometans are 
 better, to my great surprise. 
 
 " I do not see anything to hinder my embarking for the 
 United States within three months. I am likely to be at 
 Vienna two or three weeks, for the Government has very 
 courteously given me beforehand the entre'e of the prisons 
 and the hospitals, and if I do not see much to mend, I may 
 discover something to copy for application at home. 
 
 " I find traveling here alone no more difficult than I 
 should do in any part of America. My usual experience 
 attends me. People are civil and obliging, who are treated 
 civilly. I am afraid I shall be obliged to write a book, a sort 
 of narration of what I have seen during my long absence. 
 I am the sole representative of England and America on the 
 boat. There are, besides, people of many tribes, and persons 
 of far distant English possessions, affording a singular asso- 
 ciation of oriental costumes and occidental attire. As for 
 speech, Babel is not illy illustrated. You will wonder that 
 I give so meagre descriptions of persons and places, but if 
 one is busy in examining, while pausing for a few days or 
 hours in a city, there is little time for putting on paper in an 
 interesting manner details worth sending so far. 
 
 " I have resisted the very great temptation of going to 
 
304 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 Palestine, which I desired more than anything besides, be- 
 cause I could not afford the expense, though only twelve 
 days distant from Jerusalem. All my life I have wished to 
 visit the Holy City and the sacred places of Syria. As yet, 
 I have confined my journeys to those places where hospitals, 
 or the want of them, have called me. I trust my observa- 
 tions may be applied to some good uses. 
 
 " The impression of the loss of the * Arctic ' is painfully 
 fresh in my recollection. I do not fear at sea, but I never 
 for an hour forget the vicinity or the presence of danger, and, 
 in the event of accident, the almost certain loss of life. To 
 be ready is the lesson we should learn, so that if the call be 
 heard on the sea or the land, by day or by night, we may 
 be glad to go home, where our limited capacities may more 
 fully expand, and immortality perfect what time has rightly 
 planted." 
 
 Little more is left to record than the bare fact that, 
 after completing her examination of the hospitals of 
 Austria, and while in Vienna, pressing the subject of 
 the promised new asylum in Dalmatia, on the eastern 
 coast of the Adriatic, Miss Dix visited successively 
 Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, 
 and a part of Germany, returning by way of France 
 to England. Day by day, she patiently explored the 
 asylums, prisons, and poorhouses of every place in 
 which she set her foot, glad to her heart's core when 
 she found anything to commend and learn a lesson 
 from, and patiently striving, wherever she struck the 
 traces of ignorance, neglect, or wrong, to right the 
 evil by direct appeal to the highest authorities, and 
 by the distribution of books and reports, embodying 
 clear information as to the best methods of hospital 
 or prison construction and modes of treatment. How 
 much she thus effected in the way of correcting abuses 
 
STILL ON THE CONTINENT. 305 
 
 and stimulating the minds of earnest workers for hu- 
 manity, will be known only when the secrets of all 
 hearts are revealed. Of the strength, however, of the 
 impression produced by this quiet, sweet-voiced, yet 
 strangely authoritative woman who had come from a 
 land thousands of miles across the sea, and whose 
 unerring eye and immense experience enabled her at 
 a glance to see just where to praise and where merci- 
 fully to blame, something may perhaps be judged from 
 a single chance instance, revealing the memory she 
 left behind her in Prague, Bohemia. 
 
 Ten years after her return to America, there was 
 sent her a large box of highly-polished wood, inlaid 
 with the metallic inscription on the top " To Miss D. 
 L. D. From the American Club of Bohemian La- 
 dies." The club consisted of "ladies interested in 
 the condition and elevation of the women of Bohemia, 
 of the poorer classes, or wherever a good deed can 
 help a human being." Inside the box were a brief 
 biography of Miss Dix in the Bohemian language, 
 translations of Bohemian poems by Professor Wratis- 
 law, of Christ's College, Cambridge, England, an illus- 
 trated quarto of Bohemian National Songs, an album 
 of views of historical interest, and another of photo- 
 graphs of distinguished Bohemian women, statesmen, 
 soldiers, etc., the last bearing an inscription on ivory, 
 '" To Miss D. L. Dix, this album is dedicated as a 
 token of the affection and admiration of the Bohemian 
 Ladies' American Club, Prague, 1868." 
 
 One sure result of these arduous journeys and pa- 
 tient explorations lay in the fact that now Miss Dix 
 had put herself abreast with the worst and the best 
 Europe had to show on the subject that engrossed her 
 mind, and had come into direct personal contact with 
 
306 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 the ablest authorities on insanity in their respective 
 countries. That she was often cheered as well as 
 depressed by what she saw, is clear from the only 
 additional note in her own handwriting that still re- 
 mains : 
 
 " In Russia I saw much to approve and appreciate. As 
 for the insane in the hospitals in St. Petersburg and at Mos- 
 cow, I really had nothing to ask. Every comfort and all 
 needed care were possessed, and much recreation secured, 
 very little restraint was used. Considering I do not 
 speak the language, I get on wonderfully well, and see all 
 that time allows." 
 
 Thus, then, was completed this long and detailed 
 " circumnavigation of charity." Alike in its motive, 
 and in the fidelity with which it was executed, how 
 literally it recalls the often quoted, but never hack- 
 neyed words of the tribute of Edmund Burke to 
 Howard, the philanthropist : 
 
 " He has visited all Europe, not to survey the sumptu- 
 ousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples ; not to 
 make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient 
 grandeur ; not to form a scale of the curiosity of modern 
 art ; not to collect medals, or collate manuscripts ; but to 
 dive into the depths of dungeons ; to plunge into the infec- 
 tion of hospitals ; to survey the mansions of sorrow and 
 pain ; to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depres- 
 sion, and contempt ; to remember the forgotten, to attend 
 to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and to compare and 
 collate the distresses of all men in all countries. His plan 
 is original ; and it is as full of genius as it is of humanity. 
 It was a voyage of discovery ; a circumnavigation of 
 charity." 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 AT HOME AND AT WORK AGAIN. 
 
 SEPTEMBER 16, 1856, Miss Dix set sail from Liver- 
 pool to New York on the steamship " Baltic." Two full 
 years had now gone by since she had set foot on Eng- 
 lish soil, then seeking recuperation from the exhaust- 
 ing labors of her previous fourteen years, and from 
 the overwhelming blow of the veto of her 12,225,000 
 Acre Bill. Of the dreamy, lotus-eating way in which, 
 during the intervening time, she had surrendered her 
 tired body and mind to the luxury of rest, enough has 
 been detailed in previous chapters. It remains only 
 to give an instance or two of the spirit of congratula- 
 tion and blessing that now found vent in farewell 
 words from English friends. No more touching illus- 
 tration of this can be presented than the following 
 brief good -by letters from Dr. D. Hack Tuke, and 
 from the venerable Dr. John Conolly, the peer, per- 
 haps in the history of insanity, of Pinel and Samuel 
 Tuke : 
 
 " YORK, ENGLAND, September 14, 1856. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND, I have pretty much given up 
 the pleasing illusion of seeing you before sailing. ... I am 
 inclined to envy you the feelings which you must have in 
 the retrospect of what you have been enabled to do since 
 you set foot on British land. I cannot doubt that the day 
 will come when many, very many, will rise up to call you, 
 Blessed. Blessed to them, who, until they have been re- 
 lieved from their bodily infirmities, cannot thank you for 
 
308 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 all you have done, and the yet more you have longed to be 
 able to do, for them. 
 
 " Your truly attached friend, 
 
 " DANIEL H. TUKE." 
 
 "HANWELL, ENGLAND, August 19, 1856. 
 " MY DEAR MADAM, ... Your words of approba- 
 tion, dear Miss Dix, are very precious to me ; for I honor 
 you and your great labors for the benefit of your fellow- 
 creatures in many ways. . . . God bless you, my dear lady. 
 I trust that there are regions where, after this world, all 
 will be more congenial to such spirits, and to those who 
 sympathize with you, and share your good and noble aspi- 
 rations. Ever faithfully yours, 
 
 " J. CONOLLY." 
 
 Happily, the home voyage proved continuously 
 smooth and sunny. The one only trace of physical 
 fear that can be detected in Miss Dix's courageous na- 
 ture was fear of the sea. Embarked on it, she con- 
 fessed herself always haunted with an undefined 
 sense of apprehension. In the loss, on the return 
 voyage, of the " Arctic," the ship on which she 
 herself had crossed over to England, several dear 
 friends had perished, and the shock of this had added 
 to the constitutional feeling of dread with which she 
 had always regarded the Atlantic. This time, how- 
 ever, all went so prosperously that she was able at the 
 very close of the voyage to write back to England : 
 " We are still getting on well, and already land birds 
 come to the vessel for food and rest. They are very 
 familiar, and eat from our hands. One came into the 
 open window near me while at dinner to-day, rested 
 on the table by the captain's plate, picked up some 
 crumbs, and, finally satisfied, flew away, perhaps for 
 the distant land, fifty miles off." 
 
AT HOME AND AT WORK AGAIN. 309 
 
 From the insistent urgency of the appeals for re- 
 newed work which, from various quarters of the 
 United States and of Canada, forthwith greeted Miss 
 Dix on her return to her native land, one can only 
 wonder that the birds, of which she so tenderly speaks 
 as alighting on the table of the " Baltic " to pick up 
 crumbs, were not in reality seriously-minded carrier- 
 pigeons, each with a momentous little billet under its 
 wing from Halifax, or Nashville, or Columbia, ad- 
 dressed " D. L. D. Immediate Delivery." All were 
 of one tenor : we need fresh extensions, we must have 
 another hospital in another part of the State, we must 
 get large appropriations this coming winter, every- 
 thing missteers when your hand is off the helm. 
 
 In exact contrast with all this, it had been the hope 
 of many of Miss Dix's old asylum friends that she 
 would now be able to devote herself to writing a book, 
 in which she should carefully digest the results of her 
 immense range of observation in Europe and in the 
 East. But she was then fifty-four years old, and the 
 habits of a lifetime are not to be altered. Her whole 
 soul was bent now on fruitfully applying what she had 
 seen and learned to the actual needs of the present, 
 rather than on sitting quietly down to formulate gene- 
 ral principles. 
 
 Indeed, it becomes ever clearer as Miss Dix's work 
 is carefully studied into, that, in the actual founding 
 of the many asylums she so fondly called her children, 
 her labors were destined to bear about the same pro- 
 portional relation to the coming toils demanded for 
 their extension and full development, as does the 
 travail of the actual mother in bringing her little ones 
 into the world, to the subsequent nursing, training, 
 watching over, and educating them, till they shall 
 
310 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 have reached the full estate of manhood or woman- 
 hood. 
 
 A great feat it no doubt was to carry a bill for the 
 establishment of a new asylum through a State legis- 
 lature. And yet here lay but the first triumph over 
 ignorance and apathy. To get the institution well 
 manned ; to help the asylum to endear itself to the 
 community through the cures effected, or the chronic 
 misery relieved ; to raise up friends for it who would 
 always bear in mind its first estate of bareness and 
 destitution, and try to make it homelike and supply it 
 with means for industrial occupation and amusement ; 
 to get ready for the day of needed enlargement ; all 
 these cares and anxieties the fond and thoughtful 
 asylum-mother bore perpetually on her mind. 
 
 In truth, it was with a literal " godly jealousy " that 
 she watched over these young institutions, yearning 
 to see the physicians and attendants a consecrated 
 band, martyrs, if need be, in a sacred cause. On 
 them, she felt it rested to win for the cause full rev- 
 erence and support. Never sparing herself, the ideal 
 of absolute devotion she illustrated in action, far more 
 than preached by word, is touchingly shown in the fol- 
 lowing extract from a letter written her, so late as the 
 advanced age of seventy-one, by Dr. J. M. Cleaveland 
 of the Hudson Kiver State Hospital : 
 
 "Your devotion to duty in starting off in that pitiless 
 Monday's storm touched all our hearts. The lesson it in- 
 culcated was more than a chapter of moral maxims, and I 
 hope we may never forget it." 
 
 No, she could not stop to write a book. The cry 
 from so many quarters, " Come over and help us ! ' 
 was too loud and continuous. Accordingly, it is 
 
AT HOME AND AT WORK AGAIN. 311 
 
 simply what was to be expected, to find her before 
 the close of the year writing from as far north as 
 Toronto, Canada West : 
 
 " It is truly sorrowful to find so much suffering through 
 neglect, ignorance, and mismanagement, but I hope for 
 better things at no distant time. The weather has been 
 severe and stormy, but in proportion as my own discomforts 
 have increased, my conviction of the necessity of search 
 into the wants of the friendless and afflicted has deepened. 
 If I am cold, they are cold ; if I am weary, they are dis- 
 tressed ; if I am alone, they are abandoned." 
 
 There now lay before Miss Dix, until the break- 
 ing out in 1861 of the great Civil War which impera- 
 tively turned her energies in a new direction, more 
 than four years of unremitting activity. They were 
 the years of her life marked by obtaining larger 
 appropriations of money, for purely benevolent pur- 
 poses, than, probably, it was ever given to any other 
 mortal in the old world or the new to raise. The 
 United States has earned the somewhat dubious fame 
 of being " the land of millionaires," and the rivalry is 
 growing ever faster and more furious who shall pile 
 up the most fabulous amount, set down to his own 
 private credit. Unquestionably, under this last pro- 
 viso, Miss Dix must humbly yield precedence to the 
 Astors, Vanderbilts, Jay Goulds, and others of the 
 plutocratic hierarchy. None the less will the faithful 
 historian have to record the fact that of the " million- 
 aires of charity," she easily heads the list. These 
 were the years of the enlargement of nearly all the 
 asylums she had founded, as well as the years marked 
 by the foundation of a number of new ones. 
 
 To condense, therefore, the narrative of this period 
 within any fairly readable limits, there is but one 
 
312 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 possible course to pursue. It is to omit, and omit, 
 and omit. All that can be done in this and the suc- 
 ceeding chapter is to present a limited selection of 
 letters and memoranda, and let the reader multiply 
 at will their main tenor. 
 
 The internal history of the personnel of a great 
 insane asylum is, to any one who has been privileged 
 to read so immense a mass of correspondence as Miss 
 Dix left behind her, one of the most curious, baffling, 
 and often tragic it is possible to conceive. From the 
 sheer necessity of the case, the feeling of a superin- 
 tendent and of his assistant physicians must often be 
 that of men who are sleeping over a powder magazine. 
 Outside is a jealous public swift to conceive dire sus- 
 picions. Inside is a mass of disorganized human 
 nature, the prey of wild hallucinations and shapes of 
 degraded passion, cunning, deceitful, and unable to 
 distinguish between fact and fancy. Pass through 
 the wards, and forthwith will rational-seeming men 
 and attractive women stop you, and with streaming 
 eyes begin to tell you such stories of the brutality to 
 which they have been subjected by the violence or 
 sensuality of the superintendent a man, perhaps, of 
 the elevation of character and consecration of life of 
 a Bell, Woodward, or Kirkbride, as would for a 
 moment stagger the faith of Abraham, so quietly, 
 logically, and movingly are the stories told. 
 
 Nor is this all. There are, besides, scores of nurses 
 and attendants, as well as a great department, some- 
 times under its own separate head, of cooks, scullions, 
 and workmen. A quotum of these are inevitably per- 
 sons of ill-regulated character. Often they have to 
 be discharged for unfaithfulness. Then comes their 
 day of revenge. They have their mates, some of them 
 
AT HOME AND AT WORK AGAIN. 313 
 
 likewise discontented. How easy, then, out of such a 
 storehouse of inflammable material, 'to start a story 
 that will run like wildfire, and which can be supported 
 before a committee of investigation by the evidence of 
 two or three, perhaps beautiful, women, who tell so 
 circumstantially their piteous story and are so heart- 
 moving in their appeal for redress, that the reputation 
 of the most revered superintendent in the land can 
 hardly hold its own in the minds of the directors of 
 his own institution. Soon the outside public has got 
 hold of the terrible revelation of what is going on 
 behind the bars of the asylum, and furious factions 
 are formed, as deaf to the voice of reason as any of 
 the inmates within. 
 
 In cases like the above, Miss Dix was appealed to 
 again and again, and often her clear judgment and 
 thorough knowledge of the workings of insanity en- 
 abled her to disabuse the minds of committees who 
 had been made to harbor unjust suspicions of the 
 purest and most devoted men. Though her decisions 
 entailed upon her much abuse, she never shrank from 
 doing her duty. As an instance, therefore, of her 
 religiously-exalted self-reliance when she felt herself 
 to be in the right, the following short extract from a 
 letter to her friend, Miss Heath, is of interest. There 
 had been trouble in the internal working of the asylum 
 in Worcester, Mass., a conflict of authority between 
 matron and steward, as to which Miss Dix, on appeal, 
 had taken decided ground. The two belligerent par- 
 ties had carried their grievance to the outside public 
 of Worcester, one faction of which had betaken itself 
 to that palladium of modern liberties, the press, and 
 had there roundly abused Miss Dix 
 
314 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 "March 24, 1857. 
 
 " MY DEAR ANNIE, Do not take too much to heart 
 that which mistaken people say in Worcester ; it is as the 
 weight of a feather to me. I am right, what harm can 
 these do me ? * The Lord is the strength of my life, whom 
 should I fear ; the Lord is my defense on my right hand, 
 of whom should I be afraid ? ' I am steadfast in His 
 might." 
 
 Six months later, there occurs a passage in a letter 
 to Mrs. Rathbone, of Liverpool, throwing light on 
 another species of annoyance with which Miss Dix was 
 constantly beset, the annoyance too familiarly known 
 in the TJnited States as that of the importunity of of- 
 fice seekers. For years had she been exposed to it in 
 her own land, but now the reputation she had gained 
 in Scotland, and the number of desirable positions that 
 would be opened up through the creation of new 
 county asylums, had, it seemed, acted on aspiring 
 Scotch medical minds very much as it would have on 
 the minds of the brethren in America, thus demon- 
 strating once again how " one touch of nature makes 
 the whole world kin." 
 
 " I have had letters from abroad," she now writes, 
 " urging me to commend various parties to official 
 places in regard to the insane. I, of course, decline 
 such interference, considering it out of my line of activ- 
 ity." On this point, at least, of refusing, even on local 
 Scotch solicitation, to reenact the now popular part of 
 " The American Invader," Miss Dix was inexorable. 
 Meanwhile, at home, her power of patronage was con- 
 stantly growing larger and larger. No one else in the 
 country and that at the appeal of high public offi- 
 cials throughout the south and west exercised to 
 such an extent the " right of investiture," or had so 
 
AT HOME AND AT WORK AGAIN. 315 
 
 many medical "living's" at command. But no man 
 ever helped his cause by personal solicitation of her 
 influence. Her own sense of fitness for the post de- 
 cided her action, and, a recommendation given, she 
 sought to, have it kept an inviolable secret. So strong, 
 indeed, was this feeling with her, that, as personally 
 told to the writer of her biography by Dr. John W. 
 Ward, of Trenton, N. J., on the occasion of his 
 learning from his trustees some years after his ap- 
 pointment as superintendent that he owed it to the 
 emphatic recommendation of Miss Dix, and then in- 
 cautiously proceeding to thank her, she turned sharply 
 on him and denounced it as a betrayal of confidence 
 that he had ever been permitted to know the fact. It 
 is easy to imagine the devoutness of the exclamation, 
 " O sancta simplicitas ! " with which such an account 
 would be read by the average American Senator or 
 Member of the House of Representatives. 
 
 July 21, 1857, finds Miss Dix beginning a letter in 
 Cleveland, O., to Mrs. Rathbone, and finishing it in 
 Zelienople, Penn. An entirely new asylum to be 
 founded near Pittsburg, an institution on the plan of 
 the Rath House near Hamburg, Germany, to be stud- 
 ied, and a zealous attempt to be made to " confer a 
 real benefit on the stagnant life " of a dying commu- 
 nity by affording it an opportunity to contribute to 
 the prospected hospital, are here the visible straws 
 which show the swift and strong set of the current. 
 
 To MBS. RATHBONE. 
 
 "CLEVELAND, OHIO, July 21, 1857. 
 
 " I am here only for a few days, and proceed to Zelien- 
 ople, and thence to Pittsburg, where I hope to complete 
 what I have begun and advanced there. I have induced the 
 
316 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 managers of the proposed benevolent Institution to sell the 
 farm which had been purchased, and which is not well situ- 
 ated, and take a magnificent location for a hospital on a fine 
 elevated site which I found on the Ohio River, eight miles 
 from Pittsburg, and which is both salubrious and cheerful, 
 joined with outlooks of rare beauty associated with some 
 elements of grandeur. 
 
 " ZELIENOPLE, PENN., August 10. I was broken off from 
 my writing more than a fortnight since. Here at Zelienople, 
 I am both looking for a farm well situated and well watered, 
 and studying an Institution having chiefly the features of 
 the celebrated Rauhe Hatis at Horn near Hamburg. It is 
 a new Reformatory, erected by a noble-minded clergyman 
 of the German Lutheran persuasion, one of those men of 
 rare power, Fe'nelon-like spirit, and Apostolic self-sacrifice 
 whom we occasionally see rising up to show the astonished 
 world how much one man can do through the force of 
 moral power without riches save the riches of a sanctified 
 spirit. . . . 
 
 " I proceed to-morrow to Economy, hoping to secure from 
 the followers of that singular man Rapp, the Suabian peas- 
 ant, who emigrated with his family to the United States 
 more than fifty years ago, a contribution for hospital uses. 
 . . . The large wealth accumulated by singular skill and 
 industry, before the death of their leader and founder, Rapp, 
 is stored in secret, and no doubt before many years will 
 escheat to the Commonwealth. They have no longer hopes 
 or expectations. The prophetic declarations of their Foun- 
 der are falsified, and now a handful remain where once 
 their name was ' Legion.' One seeks of them charities as 
 conferring on their stagnant life a real benefit. Lately 
 they gave $500 to the new hospital." 
 
 The above quoted extracts must suffice for furnish- 
 ing glimpses of the indefatigable worker in 1857. 
 The new year of 1858 may well enough open with a 
 letter of date, Oneida, N. Y., January 25. 
 
AT HOME AND AT WORK AGAIN. 317 
 
 To MRS. RATHBONE. 
 
 " ONEIDA, N. Y., January 25, 1858. 
 
 " Snow two feet deep, thermometer 27 below zero, gas- 
 burners easily lighted by the spark transmitted by the fin- 
 ger. Thus it is not difficult to realize the severity of the 
 cold so often described by Arctic voyagers. Do you hear 
 anything of Mrs. Chisholm, that woman of transcendent 
 worth ? I have often wished I could do something that 
 would show her how much good hearts in this Western 
 world appreciate her and her works. How is Miss Carpenter 
 succeeding ? I have great faith that the school and disci- 
 pline on the Ackbar will finally succeed. Our work of Re- 
 form seems gigantic, and most' discouraging if the whole 
 field is taken at once ; but if each does his or her part, we 
 may hope for final success. . . . 
 
 *' I saw the announcement of Father Mathew's death 
 with a sense of thankfulness that the good man was released 
 from the infirmities which have so increased upon him as to 
 arrest his usefulness, and make life now for many months a 
 burthen and a source of anxiety to himself and friends. 
 Blessed be his memory ! The sudden death of Hugh Miller 
 is distressing in its manner, but while all who knew and ap- 
 preciated him will regret him and his abridged usefulness, 
 they will feel that he is released from a heavy dispensation, 
 viz., the total loss of his reasoning faculties, a danger which 
 I fully perceived and which I knew he dreaded two years 
 since. He was a remarkable man, and will not be forgotten. 
 " Your steadfast friend, D. L. Dix." 
 
 This last letter concludes with a sympathetic de- 
 scription of the burial of a dear friend, Rev. Samuel 
 Oilman, D. D., the Unitarian minister of Charleston, 
 S. C., a man characterized by such sanctity of spirit 
 that his funeral services were reverentially attended 
 by Catholic priests, Jewish rabbis, Episcopalian rec- 
 tors, and Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian minis- 
 
318 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 ters. Only a few years before his death, Dr. Oilman 
 had paid Miss Dix the two lines of reverential tribute, 
 which are here subjoined : 
 
 To D. L. D." 
 
 " One pain alone thy visit gives our shame 
 To live so far beneath thy own great aim." 
 
 Evidently the year 1859 was a very congenial and 
 happy one to the subject of this biography. The ear- 
 lier part of it was spent in Texas. In that far-away 
 and before unvisited section of the Union, where nat- 
 urally she had expected to find herself an entire 
 stranger, she was overjoyed at the cordiality of her 
 reception. 
 
 Very pleasant is it, therefore, after wading through 
 endless files of letters that are bare itineraries or dis- 
 cussions of hospital issues, without a word of personal 
 revelation, to light upon a few in which free expres- 
 sion is given to the natural delight in manifestations 
 of outspoken sympathy and admiration which must 
 have and ought to have yielded keen pleasure. 
 
 The first of these letters to intimate friends in 
 which she expresses her delight in the exuberant testi- 
 monials of kindliness she now encountered, is to Mrs. 
 Hare, of Philadelphia, and bears date, Austin, Texas, 
 March 28, 1859. In it, after giving a vivid account 
 of two days and nights of staging experience, ex- 
 hausting and dangerous to a high degree, she goes 
 on : 
 
 " You ask, perhaps, how I occupied myself under these 
 adverse circumstances. Why, meditated how poor, sick, 
 insane people were to live in being transported such dis- 
 tances over such roads ! I am thankful I have come, be- 
 cause I find much to do, and people take me by the hand as a 
 
AT HOME AND AT WORK AGAIN. 319 
 
 beloved friend. My eyes fill with tears at the hourly heart- 
 warm welcome, the confidence, the cordial good-will, and 
 the succession of incidents, proving that I do in very truth 
 dwell in the hearts of my countrymen. I am so astonished 
 that my wishes in regard to Institutions, my opinions touch- 
 ing organization, are considered definitive. A gentleman 
 in the State Service said to me, * You are a moral autocrat ; 
 you speak and your word is law.' People say, * O, you are 
 no stranger. We have known you years and years.' " 
 
 A second letter of like tenure was written in reply 
 to one from Mrs. Samuel Torrey, who had addressed 
 her thus : 
 
 " I have been desired by Mr. Gannett to inform you that 
 a man called upon him a few days ago, and put into his hands 
 $100 for you from the mother of a shipwrecked seaman who 
 had been saved by one of your lifeboats when wrecked off 
 the coast of Newfoundland. Mr. Gannett questioned the 
 man, but could not elicit any information respecting the 
 woman. The money was to be employed to assist poor sea- 
 men." 
 
 Miss Dix's reply runs as follows : 
 
 " BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA, April 7, 1859. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND, Mr. Torrey can hold the S100 
 on interest till I can find leisure to apply it advantageously. 
 I shall be glad to increase its amount a little by adding 
 something to it myself. I can build another lifeboat which 
 I want. ... I have been needing lifeboats myself in the 
 Gulf of Mexico, last month. We just escaped foundering. 
 In fact, for twenty-four hours the captain did not leave his 
 station on the deck. . . . 
 
 " In Texas everybody was kind, obliging, and most at- 
 tentive. I had a hundred instances that filled my eyes with 
 tears. I did not imagine anybody would know me there, 
 but on the contrary, I was claimed and acknowledged as a 
 
320 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 dear friend in such wise as has made a lasting impression 
 on my heart and mind. I was taking a dinner at a small 
 public house on a wide, lonely prairie. The master stood, 
 with the stage way-bill in his hand, reading and eyeing me, 
 I thought, because I was the only lady passenger, but, when 
 I drew out my purse to pay as usual, his quick expression 
 was, ' No, no, by George ! I don't take money from you ; 
 why, I never thought I should see you, and now you are in 
 my house ! You have done good to everybody for years 
 and years. Make sure now there 's a home for you in every 
 house in Texas. Here, wife, this is Miss Dix ! Shake 
 hands, and call the children.' 
 
 " Don't think me conceited in relating this incident. It 
 is one of a hundred in Texas, one of a thousand this winter 
 all through the South. I am constantly surprised by spon- 
 taneous expressions of the heartiest good-will, and I may 
 well be careful what I demand for hospitals, etc., for my 
 work is unquestioned, and so I try to be very prudent and 
 watchful." 
 
 Yet another letter, to her friend Miss Heath, written 
 December' 8, 1859, from Columbia, South Carolina, 
 bears witness to the same enthusiastic gratitude testi- 
 fied to her by the people of another State. 
 
 To Miss ANNIE HEATH. 
 
 " I arrived here Saturday night greeted and welcomed on 
 all sides by private friends and public authorities. I have 
 really been quite astonished at the public expressions of wel- 
 come. ... I am very happy in knowing I am much be- 
 loved by my fellow-citizens in this part of the Union. ' We 
 will prove our regard for you by our acts in behalf of those 
 for whom you plead,' said a Senator who spoke as the rep- 
 resentative of the body. I could not measure half the 
 pleasant words uttered. ' Our State will always welcome 
 you as to a home, and so will we at our firesides among the 
 wives and children.' ' Yes ! yes ! that we will,' sounded 
 
AT HOME AND AT WORK AGAIN. 321 
 
 forth spontaneously from all who were present. I have 
 sent you egotistical lines, Annie ; keep them to yourself." 
 
 It is a matter for congratulation that the friend to 
 
 O 
 
 whom the above letter was addressed did not " keep 
 these lines to herself," but carefully put them away in 
 a safe place from which some day they should emerge 
 to the light of day. Why should not the subject of 
 such demonstrations of enthusiastic love openly re- 
 joice in them ? Truly, they had been bought with a 
 price. But a few days before this hearty reception in 
 the hall of the South Carolina House of Represen- 
 tatives, she had written from New Orleans : 
 
 "I have traveled ont of ninety-three days and nights 
 past thirty-two days and nights, and this of necessity, so 
 that I lie down now and sleep any hour I can, to make up 
 lost time, and to-day I am feeling a good deal refreshed. 
 I am bound from this place to Baton Rouge, and thence by 
 land to Jackson, La., next to Bayou Sara, to Vicksburg by 
 river, thence by railroad to Jackson, Miss., after that to 
 Memphis, thence to St. Louis, thence up the Missouri to 
 the State Hospital at Fulton, returning to Jacksonville, 
 111., and to Springfield : " to all which she adds from Jack- 
 son, Miss., " So far as I can see a favorable impression is 
 made, and there is a probability that I shall get an appro- 
 priation of $80,000. I ask this winter in different States 
 more than a third of a million." 
 
 It was at this period of her exacting career that the 
 new invention of the sleeping car that " sweet ob- 
 livious antidote " to the weary leagues of American 
 railway travel was first brought into practical use. 
 Naturally enough it might have been prophesied that 
 of all the women of the land to welcome the blessing, 
 Miss Dix, who had sat bolt upright through such an 
 infinity of nights, would have led the van. Amusing 
 
322 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 is it, however, in this present year of 1890, to read her 
 first aghast impressions of these whirling dormitories, 
 and to see how strongly they shocked that delicate 
 sense of feminine propriety which was so marked a 
 characteristic of her nature : 
 
 "Shall be here [she writes Miss Heath from Jackson, 
 Miss.] till the 30th, when I go to Columbia, S. C., a journey 
 of three days and three nights. I saw some sleeping cars. 
 That was enough. Nothing would induce me to occupy one 
 of them, they are quite detestable. I did make one night's 
 experiment later, between Pittsburg and Cincinnati ; that 
 will suffice for the rest of life. I cannot suppose that per- 
 sons of decent habits, especially ladies, will occupy them, 
 unless some essential changes are made in their arrange- 
 ments and regulations." 
 
 One farther letter will fitly conclude the narration 
 of this fruitful year, 1859. It contains the fullest 
 detailed description Miss Dix has left behind of any of 
 her brilliant dashes of energy and courage. Written 
 in a vein of humorous enjoyment of the scene, it 
 unconsciously furnishes a striking exhibition of that 
 lightning-swift dispatch with which however over- 
 weighted with other cares she stood ready to turn 
 instantly aside to right a wrong appealing from any 
 new quarter. 
 
 To MKS. WILLIAM RATHBONE. 
 
 " Did I write you an account of my affair with, or in 
 connection with, some kidnapped Indians ? If it is briefly 
 recapitulated no harm will come, but you must have thought 
 it singular, at least, if you saw the New York papers, 1 
 
 1 Several New York papers had given highly sensational accounts 
 of the attack of the rescuing party as led by Miss Dix in person. 
 
AT HOME AND AT WORK AGAIN. 323 
 
 that my name was in such odd juxtaposition with street riots 
 and acts of violence endangering life. 
 
 " While iii Albany, in the State Library last month, sev- 
 eral persons being with me consulting on pending questions, 
 a white man and an Indian entered, and the former said, 
 * There is Miss Dix ; come, tell her your story ! ' It was 
 this : Near Syracuse, in Central New York, is an Indian 
 settlement of five hundred souls. A company of circus 
 riders and strolling players, visiting Syracuse, thought it 
 might be a good speculation to entice some of the Indians 
 from this village to New York, three hundred miles distant, 
 embark with them for Europe, and make a show of the 
 Aborigines for their own profit. 
 
 "To this end they proceeded to the Indian village, se- 
 lected their dupes, six lads of about fourteen, and several 
 squaws, with one or two infants. Promising them fine shows 
 and sights in Syracuse, they induced them to go there. 
 This excited no other attention than a little feeling of envy 
 amongst those who could not witness the promised exhibi- 
 tions. After the plays were over, the above-named Indians 
 were persuaded to get on a night train of cars and * take a 
 little ride.' This little ride ended only in the city of New 
 York, and still held by blinding promises they were taken 
 to a remote tavern on the outskirts of the city, and there 
 strictly watched till the vessel was ready in which the com- 
 pany designed to embark. 
 
 " Meanwhile, one of the boys managed to escape and 
 found his way to his own people, reporting the captivity of 
 his companions. The father of two of the boys, a chief, 
 hastened to the city, but the journey consumed his little 
 stock of money, and, however bold and at home in the for- 
 ests, the mighty city of New York, and the people with 
 whose language he was so little familiar thronging every- 
 where, yet unheeding his perplexities, made him fearful and 
 troubled. He came up the river again as far as Albany, 
 saw a man on the street he knew, and related his troubles. 
 
324 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 This man, a doorkeeper at the State Capitol, brought him to 
 me, and after a few minutes' consideration I, taking with me 
 the Indian, proceeded to the office of the Regent of the 
 University and asked the professor to attend me to the 
 Executive Chambers. They were crowded, but the Governor 
 was my friend and my host, for I was at that time a guest 
 at Government House. At once I stated the case, asking 
 authority to send to the city for the release of the captive 
 Indians. The State attorney was sent for, but not being 
 particularly prompt, nor giving in the sequence any very 
 lucid opinion, I turned away. The Governor gave the In- 
 dian sufficient money to pay his expenses back by cars to 
 New York, one hundred and thirty miles. 
 
 " I took Jeave, and sent a page to the Senate Chamber 
 for one of the city Senators. That body was specially en- 
 gaged. I repeated my message urgently, and Mr. Spencer 
 came. I stated the case. He wrote an order to the Chief 
 of Police, directing him to make search for the missing par- 
 ties and deliver them to the chief, and by all means pre- 
 vent their embarkation. I then addressed a letter to the 
 District Attorney of New York, and now it wanted but ten 
 minutes to the departure of the cars south. I bade the 
 Indian run to the station, an Indian can always run, 
 giving him the sealed packages, and to say, on arriving in 
 the city, to the conductor of the train that he wanted a 
 policeman to guide him to the captain's office being there 
 to deliver the papers and wait the result. 
 
 " It appears all went well thus far. The Chief of Police 
 detailed a party of policemen, and the ' Show Company ' 
 were found occupying a low tavern in the suburbs, and con- 
 cealed in a back room where they watched their Onandaga 
 captives. The five boys were immediately taken, though 
 some opposition and a show of fight were made. The next 
 day a second party went out to take the remainder of the 
 Indians, and now thirty or forty partisans of the company, 
 rowdies of the baser sort, being collected, a fight com- 
 
AT HOME AND AT WORK AGAIN. 325 
 
 menced. The police were assailed with stones, knives, and 
 blows, but eventually carried their point, besides arresting 
 some of the leaders of the affray and the landlord. 
 
 "The Indians were all conveyed to the North River 
 Station, free passage given to Albany, and dispatched to the 
 Seat of Government with a letter to Governor King, and the 
 next day some news-scavenger threw into the columns of a 
 newspaper a history of the affair with embellishments, and 
 using my name as chief patroness of all people in adversity 
 or otherwise oppressed, so oddly mixed up the story as to 
 make it look very much as if I were not content with the 
 more quiet part of the performance, but had heroically led 
 the attack, not by pen, but by armed force. 
 
 " I send this hastily written letter off without looking to 
 see what is so carelessly put together. I invite myself to 
 be your guest five years from now, all of us surviving 
 that period, and I trust you will live many long and good 
 years. 
 
 " God bless you and yours, 
 
 " Truly yours, 
 
 "D. L. Dix." 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 TILL THE OUTBREAK OF WAR. 
 
 THERE remained now but little over a year before 
 the outbreak of the great Civil War, which was to put 
 an end, in Miss Dix's case, to all especial asylum work, 
 until the vaster question was settled in blood whether 
 the American Union was to be rent in twain or rees- 
 tablished on the rock of universal liberty. Few knew 
 the real spirit of the South so thoroughly as she, few 
 were so full of well-grounded apprehensions. But 
 though her heart was painfully distressed with sad 
 forebodings, the whole interval was filled with cease- 
 less activity. 
 
 There are several letters of this especial year, 1860, 
 which throw a clear, revealing light on the deepest- 
 seated characteristic of the subject of this biography, 
 namely, the well - nigh awful intensity of will with 
 which she closed in life-and-death grapple with every 
 shape of wrong inflicted on the class of miserable be- 
 ings to whose championship she believed herself called 
 by the immediate voice of God. Spite of the won- 
 derful results wrought through her campaign in Great 
 Britain, and in the very press, moreover, of ceaseless 
 work in America, her mind is none the less found 
 going back to the old country still haunted with dis- 
 tressing memories of abuses there, piteously demand- 
 ing redress. How inevitably, in reading the following 
 letter to Mrs. Rathbone, does the outcry of a previ- 
 
TILL THE OUTBREAK OF WAR. 327 
 
 ously quoted letter from Toronto, Canada, recur to 
 the mind : " If I am cold, they are cold ; if I am 
 weary, they are distressed ; if I am alone, they are 
 abandoned." Inevitably, too, recur the characterizing 
 words of Dr. Tuke, " that terrible reformer, but gentle 
 lady." 
 
 "HARRISBURG, PA., March 18, 1860. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND ... I wish much that I could see you 
 again. This idea will not give way even when I see how much 
 one can find to do, ever laboring with constant diligence. 
 Should I recross the ocean, I should greatly desire to do some- 
 thing for the Private Houses, hospitals they cannot be called, 
 for the hapless insane, whose greatest calamity is in being cast 
 within their imprisoning walls. This horror haunts me like 
 an ill dream, or a fearful remembrance of what it is actu- 
 ally, a series of most dreadful facts. I cannot excuse or 
 forgive the English Commissioners of Lunacy. They surely 
 should know their duty, if they do not : but their dull eyes 
 and sluggisb, far-separated visitations have revealed some- 
 thing of the dreary horrors of those heathen receptacles 
 sustained by a Christian people. They are too indolent to 
 exert the influence their official station gives to remedy, at 
 least in a measure, what their criminal sufferance makes 
 them participants in maintaining. If I could have author- 
 ity, I would not let one circling moon pass her changes, be- 
 fore I was again upon that field of toil, and neither time 
 nor thought should be spared in the service. But I must 
 turn from this subject, on which I never allow myself to 
 think at all, if I can help it." 
 
 A striking illustration of the range of outlook 
 characteristic of Miss Dix is furnished in this same 
 year, 1860, in a letter from Wisconsin, while on the 
 way to Minnesota. Since first she had begun her 
 work of caring for the outcasts in the many States of 
 the Union, how marvelous had been the unceasing 
 
328 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 creation out of previous wilderness of ever new States, 
 each covering the area of what would constitute a 
 kingdom in Europe ! What a spectacle the American 
 continent was thus presenting of a vast tidal wave of 
 civilization steadily and irresistibly sweeping from the 
 Atlantic to the far-away Pacific ! A Sioux Indian up- 
 rising, say in Minnesota, accompanied by wide-spread 
 massacre of the scattered settlers, and then, in a seem- 
 ing trice, a fresh enrolling of the momentarily baffled 
 tide of immigration, which meant enormous new areas 
 of cultivated land, thriving manufactories, compact 
 cities, schools, colleges, and libraries ! Yes, and it 
 must mean equally institutions of mercy for the help- 
 less and miserable ! was Miss Dix's invincible resolve. 
 The pioneer in charity must keep abreast with the 
 pioneer of material civilization. 
 
 To MRS. WILLIAM RATHBONE. 
 
 " PRAIRIE DU CHIEK, WISCONSIN, August 27, 1860. 
 
 " I am writing at a side table in a telegraph office, wait- 
 ing for a boat to La Crosse, after which I shall push up the 
 Mississippi to St. Paul, Fort Snelling, and St. Anthony. I 
 miss your letters so pleasant and refreshing, often cheering 
 me by the way as I am seated in the cars, passing from one 
 place to another. 
 
 " I expect to be in the Northwest, in this wonderful 
 country of vast prairies, wide, deep, ocean-reaching rivers, 
 and lakes that deceive you into the idea that you are where 
 the Atlantic rushes in upon the resisting shores of the East- 
 ern States. . . . The country is packed with luckless for- 
 eigners. Well, the world at present is large enough for all. 
 If all would do their part for the general good, how would 
 the earth become as ' the Garden of the Lord.' The Ger- 
 man and the Norwegian element is making a mark here, 
 and their people in the main are industrious, saving, and or 
 
TILL THE OUTBREAK OF WAR. 329 
 
 derly, except a remnant of the former who are in life and 
 character very coarse and brutal, and singularly addicted to 
 wife-tyranny, beating and often killing the poor drudges 
 of the household. The insane of this class of Germans 
 and of the South of Ireland people are rarely cured, and 
 so they go to swell the amount of those who crowd the in- 
 curable wards of hospitals." 
 
 With the coming of colder weather in the same 
 year, 1860, the customary legislative activity was 
 transferred farther South ; with what cheering results 
 may be gathered from the following extract from a 
 letter to Mrs. Rathbone, of date, Columbia, South 
 Carolina, November 9 and December 19, 1860 : 
 
 " I made a rapid journey hither by railroad from Jackson, 
 Miss., traveling without stopping a half hour three days and 
 three nights, and arriving to find all hospital business not at 
 a standstill merely, but looking very unpromising. I had 
 no time to lose, and at once saw the Senate and House Com- 
 mittees, reasoned, explained, persuaded, urged, till I secured 
 a unanimous report from these parties to their respective 
 bodies in favor of an extension by new wings, etc., of the State 
 Hospital for the Insane. Thus the work is fairly com- 
 menced. 
 
 " Dec. 19. My Bill l has passed both Senate and House 
 by almost unanimous vote, and I go hence to attend to some 
 hospital interests at Charleston, S. C. Providence seems 
 leading me on, and He, by whose mercy I am preserved, 
 blesses all my labors for the afflicted. . . Whether we are 
 
 1 Miss Dix's bill in South Carolina was for $60,000 for support of 
 the asylum toward the foundation of which she had worked from 
 1852 to 1858 ; $5,000 for repairs ; $10,000 for back debts, and $80,- 
 000 for new extension. This same winter she had carried through a 
 Bill in Tennessee for an entirely new hospital in Knoxville, as well as 
 raised a large appropriation for the old one she had founded in Nash- 
 ville. These amounts, together with over $100,000 secured in Penn- 
 sylvania, represent a portion only of the work of the year. 
 
330 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 permitted to meet again is doubtful. I do certainly indulge 
 the hope. At present I have much that must be under- 
 taken here." 
 
 It need, then, hardly be wondered at that the year 
 1860 closed on the part of Miss Dix with devout 
 thanksgiving, and that with the opening of 1861, she 
 should write to her friend Miss Heath in the following 
 rejoicing strain : 
 
 "FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY, March, 1861. 
 
 " DEAR ANNIE, All my Bills have passed. My winter 
 has been fully successful. I have had great cares, greater 
 fatigues, many dangers, countless blessings unmeasured, pre- 
 serving mercies, and am joined to all occasions for thanks- 
 giving well, and still able to work very satisfactorily. . . . 
 God spare our distressed country ! " 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 OUTBREAK OF WAR. 
 
 NOTWITHSTANDING the imminence of a bloody issue 
 between South and North in the United States, Miss 
 Dix, as has been seen, kept on steadily at her accus- 
 tomed work. The election to the presidency of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln would, she was entirely persuaded, pre- 
 cipitate war. For years had she been brought into 
 close personal contact with the majority of the power- 
 ful leaders of public opinion in the South, and under- 
 stood their ideas and spirit as did few Northern 
 people. Wholly devoted to her self-chosen work, and 
 feeling that a word from her on the slavery question 
 would, through vast sections of the country, destroy in 
 an instant her power to do anything farther for the in- 
 sane, she had for years maintained a rigid silence on 
 the whole issue. It was an instance of the inevitable 
 sacrifice of one cause of humanity for another. As 
 has been already said, she was under bonds to hold 
 her peace, bonds not of self-interest, but of merciful 
 compassion. 
 
 Work, constant work, was now her refuge from dis- 
 tressful thought about her country. Thus, February, 
 1861, we find her writing from Illinois to her friend 
 Miss Heath : 
 
 " I thank God, dear Annie, I have such full uses for time 
 now, for the state of our beloved country, otherwise, would 
 crush my heart and life. I was never so unhappy but once 
 
332 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 before, and that grief was more selfish perhaps, viz., when 
 the 12,225,000 Acre Bill was killed by a poor, base man 
 in power." 
 
 It will readily be remembered by the reader that on 
 the sudden and startling call of President Lincoln for 
 75,000 volunteer troops to defend Washington, Mass- 
 achusetts was the first to respond, with two regiments, 
 the Sixth and Eighth. The possibility of such instan- 
 taneous promptitude had been due to the ardor and 
 foresight of Governor John A. Andrew, who mainly 
 of his own personal initiative had provided the needful 
 accoutrements and ammunition. 
 
 The regiment the first to leave Massachusetts got 
 safely through to Baltimore, where, in marching 
 through the streets to the Washington Station, it was 
 assailed by a furious mob, and a number of its soldiers 
 were massacred. The main body, however, made its 
 way across the city, boarded the train, and reached 
 the National Capital the same evening. 
 
 At once the Secession element in Baltimore gained 
 the upper hand, and before the following morning par- 
 ties were sent out to burn the railroad bridges between 
 the city and Philadelphia, two of these bridges each 
 a mile or more in length. Thus was railway commu- 
 nication cut off between Washington and the North, 
 and the possibility of holding the National Capitol, 
 surrounded as it was by a fiercely hostile population, 
 seriously imperiled. Everything depended on the 
 rapidity with which troops could be thrown into the 
 city. To effect this by rail, farther than to the 
 north bank of the Susquehanna Kiver, was now an im- 
 possibility ; but from this point water communication 
 could be had by way of the Susquehanna and of Ches- 
 apeake Bay to Annapolis, Md., from whence it was a 
 marcn of scarcely twenty miles to Washington. 
 
OUTBREAK OF WAR. 333 
 
 Fortunately, the President of the Philadelphia and 
 Baltimore Railroad, Samuel M. Felton, was a man ca- 
 pable of taking in the full peril of the situation. In- 
 stantly seizing the steamboats on the river, he col- 
 lected them on the north shore, provisioned and coaled 
 them, and had all in readiness for a start as soon as 
 the arrival on the following day of the second contin- 
 gent of the Massachusetts troops under General Ben- 
 jamin F. Butler. Thus by a masterly move was the 
 flank of infuriated Maryland turned, and, not improb- 
 ably, Washington saved. 
 
 The peculiar part played by Miss Dix in the prepa- 
 rations instituted to meet this critical juncture is known 
 to but few, though it was a part always recognized 
 with gratitude and admiration by President Felton. 
 Indeed, in a letter to the writer of this biography, he 
 states that he " again and again besought Miss Dix to 
 permit him to make known how much the country 
 owed to her, but that she had always given a point- 
 blank refusal to have any use made of her name." 
 Years later, however, President Felton wrote out 011 
 his own responsibility a full narrative of the episode. 
 It furnishes one more example of Miss Dix's practical 
 grasp of an emergency, and of her singular power of 
 impressing her convictions on others. Extracts from 
 President Felton's personal letter run as follows : 
 
 "PHILADELPHIA, 1026 WALNUT ST., May 8, 1888. 
 
 " DEAR MB. TIFFANY, . . . I send you the inclosed ex- 
 tract from a paper which I prepared some twenty years ago, 
 at the request of Mr. Sibley, then Librarian of Harvard Uni- 
 versity, detailing the part which I took in the beginning of the 
 War of the Rebellion. In that are my recollections of Miss 
 Dix, showing the part she took in those early days . . . 
 
 " Early in the year 1861, Miss Dix, the Philanthropist, 
 
334 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 came into my office on a Saturday afternoon. I had known 
 her for some years as one engaged in alleviating the suffer- 
 ings of the afflicted. Her occupation in building hospitals 
 had brought her into contact with the prominent men South. 
 She had become familiar with the structure of Southern so- 
 ciety, and also with the working of its political machinery. 
 She stated to me that she had an important communication 
 to. make to me personally. 
 
 " I listened attentively to what she had to say for more 
 than an hour. She put in a tangible and reliable shape by 
 the facts she related what before I had heard in numerous 
 and detached parcels. The sum of it all was, that there 
 was then an extensive and organized conspiracy through the 
 South to seize upon Washington, with its archives and rec- 
 ords, and then declare the Southern Confederacy de facto 
 the Government of the United States. At the same time 
 they were to cut off all means of communication between 
 Washington and the North, East, and West, and thus pre- 
 vent the transportation of troops to wrest the Capital from 
 the hands of the insurgents. Mr. Lincoln's inauguration 
 was thus to be prevented, or his life was to fall a sacrifice. 
 In fact, she said, troops were then drilling on the line of 
 our own road, the Washington and Annapolis line, and other 
 lines of railroad. The men drilled were to obey the com- 
 mands of their leaders, and the leaders were banded to- 
 gether to capture Washington." 
 
 So profound was the impression produced on the 
 mind of President Felton by this interview as to lead 
 to the immediate inception of measures which revealed 
 the full extent of the peril of which Miss Dix had 
 given him such startling information. Detectives 
 were hired, who managed to enlist as volunteers in 
 the various squads of men secretly drilling along the 
 lines of railroad from Harrisburg and from Philadel- 
 phia to Baltimore and Washington, and who thus be- 
 
OUTBREAK OF WAR. 335 
 
 came at home in their schemes. That it was the in- 
 tention to assassinate Abraham Lincoln, on his way to 
 the Capital to be inaugurated as President, became in- 
 creasingly clear to Mr. Felton. Thence the masterly 
 move by which he averted this appalling danger, and 
 secretly smuggled the President - Elect through to 
 Washington. Certainly it is a noteworthy fact that, 
 in the days when the wits of most men were utterly 
 at sea, the keen insight and military decision of mind 
 of a woman should have lighted on the precise point 
 where the greatest peril to the nation lay, and that the 
 power of the warning she gave should have been so 
 impressive as to have led to the decisive measures 
 through which in all probability the name and fame 
 of Abraham Lincoln were preserved to the country, 
 and, not unlikely, Washington itself saved. 
 
 It so happened that, at the time of the wild excite- 
 ment which broke out as soon as it was known that 
 the Sixth Massachusetts was on its way from Boston 
 to Washington, and that other regiments from various 
 States were to follow, Miss Dix was with her old friends, 
 Dr. and Mrs. Buttolph, at the Trenton Asylum, rest- 
 ing there from a recent arduous tour through the 
 West. Taking in the situation in an instant, she felt 
 that Washington, where camp disease and wounded 
 men would soon be the order of the day, was now her 
 post of duty. Accordingly, only three hours after the 
 massacre in Baltimore, and while all was still fright- 
 ful tumult, she reached that city, and with great diffi- 
 culty making her way through the thronging streets, 
 managed to board the last train that was permitted to 
 leave for Washington. The call for volunteers had 
 brought her as a volunteer, to report for nursing 
 duties. A hurried line from her to her friend Miss 
 Heath tells the story. 
 
336 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 "WASHINGTON, D. C., April 20, 1861. 
 
 " DEAR ANNIE, Yesterday I followed in the train three 
 hours after the tumult in Baltimore. It was not easy get- 
 ting across the city, but I did not choose to turn back, and 
 so I reached my place of destination. I think my duty lies 
 near military hospitals for the present. This need not be 
 announced. I have reported myself and some nurses for 
 free service at the War Department and to the Surgeon 
 General." 
 
 Thus, through the promptitude with which she was 
 first on the ground, had Miss Dix manifested her old- 
 time spirit. Perfectly naturally, then, did it come 
 about that she should at once be appointed " Superin- 
 tendent of Women Nurses, to select and assign women 
 nurses to general or permanent military hospitals, 
 they not to be employed in such hospitals without her 
 sanction and approval, except in cases of urgent 
 need." Orders to this effect were at once issued by 
 Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, and D. C. Wood, 
 Acting Surgeon General. 
 
 The literal meaning, however, of such a commission 
 as had thus been hurriedly bestowed on Miss Dix 
 applying as it did to the women nurses of the military 
 hospitals of the whole United States not in actual 
 rebellion was one which, in those early days of the 
 war, no one so much as began to take in. A fatal 
 delusion possessed the mind of the North that in two 
 or three months at most the war would be over. In- 
 deed, thousands severely blamed the President for 
 ordering out such a host of three-months' men. At 
 any rate, the 75,000 volunteer troops would soon 
 sweep everything before their irresistible mass and 
 valor. That a four years' deadly struggle confronted 
 the nation, that before it was settled more than a mil- 
 
OUTBREAK OF WAR. 337 
 
 lion of men would be arrayed on either side, this no 
 imagination was prophetic enough to grasp. Such 
 a commission, then, as the march of events was 
 before long to prove, involved a sheer practical 
 impossibility. It implied not a single-handed woman, 
 nearly sixty years old and shattered in health, but 
 immense organized departments at twenty different 
 centres. 
 
 Up to the time of the Civil War, the United States 
 had maintained an army of but from 20,000 to 25,000 
 men. Except in the exceptional case of the Mexican 
 War, no mind in the country had ever coped with the 
 problem of dealing with the medical care of forces 
 larger than those of the few regiments quartered in 
 widely distant parts of the Union. To help, through 
 non-military volunteer service, to meet the dire de- 
 mand now suddenly sprung on the nation, the men 
 and women of the North were working night and day ; 
 pouring out unstintedly treasures of money, and accu- 
 mulating and forwarding enormous stores of clothing, 
 bandages, and delicate foods for the sick and wounded 
 in the hospitals. 
 
 What agency, then, should prove itself competent 
 to handle and promptly distribute these vast stores ? 
 No agency, it was soon found out, short of powerful 
 organizations like the Sanitary Commission, and, later 
 on, the Christian Commission, organizations with 
 immense sums of money at their disposal, storehouses 
 at a hundred different points, trains of army wagons 
 in the field, department divisions presided over by 
 able administrative minds, with a little army of effi- 
 cient subordinates. Women nurses, moreover, were 
 volunteering by the thousands, the majority of them 
 without the experience or health to fit them for such 
 
338 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 arduous service. Who should pass on their qualifica- 
 tions, who station, superintend, and train them ? 
 
 Now,' under the Atlas weight of cares and responsi- 
 bilities so suddenly thrust on Miss Dix, the very 
 qualifications which had so preeminently fitted her 
 for the previous sphere in which she had wrought 
 such miracles of success began to tell against her. 
 She was nearly sixty years old, and with a constitution 
 sapped with malaria, overwork, and pulmonary weak- 
 ness. She had for years been a lonely and single- 
 handed worker, planning her own projects, keeping 
 her own counsel, and pressing on, unhampered by 
 the need of consulting others toward her self-chosen 
 goal. In all this, her towering idealism, and thirst 
 after perfection of organization and discipline had 
 proved the precise qualities needed. Nowhere else in 
 the world is there demanded such wise selection of 
 officials, such sleepless vigilance, and such exercise of 
 perpetual self-control, as in a well ordered insane 
 asylum. 
 
 But in war especially in a war precipitately en- 
 tered on by a raw and inexperienced people all such 
 perfection of organization and discipline is out of 
 question. If a good field hospital cannot be had, the 
 best must be made of a bad one. If a skillful sur- 
 geon is not on hand, then an incompetent one must 
 hack away after his own butcher fashion. If selfish 
 and greedy attendants or physicians wall eat up and 
 drink up the supplies of delicacies and wines for the 
 sick, then enough more must be supplied to give the 
 sick the fag-end of a chance. It is useless to try to 
 idealize war. While it calls out all that is heroic 
 and consecrated in one class of men, it calls out all 
 that is selfish and base in another. 
 
OUTBREAK OF WAR. 339 
 
 All this, however, Miss Dix could not bring her- 
 self to endure. Ready to live on a crust and to sac- 
 rifice herself without stint, her whole soul was on fire 
 at the spectacles of incompetence and callous indif- 
 ference she was daily doomed to witness. She be- 
 came overwrought and lost the requisite self-control. 
 That pathetic sympathy with human suffering which 
 had been the mainspring of her long and wonderful 
 philanthropic career, now, when she was brought face 
 to face with such massive misery she could not relieve, 
 served only to unnerve her. Inevitably, then, she be- 
 came involved in sharp altercations with prominent 
 medical officials and with regimental surgeons. She 
 tried to stand over the sick and wounded soldiers as 
 the avenging angel of their wrongs. Many and many 
 an abuse did she ferret out and get redressed. Still, 
 it is the clear opinion of her best and most judicious 
 friends that she pitched her demands impracticably 
 high, and failed to take due account of such poor 
 material as average human nature, and so to work 
 with it to the best advantage. She tried to insist on 
 her women nurses being at least thirty years old, and 
 to establish standards of pure consecration to duty 
 which were out of the range of any but a few excep- 
 tional natures like her own. Moreover, to meet the 
 constant inpouring into Washington of hundreds of 
 tons of hospital supplies, she had no adequate provision 
 of storehouses nor of the needful machinery of distri- 
 bution. The lone worker could not change her nature. 
 She tried to do everything herself, and the feat before 
 long became an impossibility. At length she came to 
 recognize this, again and again exclaiming in her dis- 
 tress, "This is not tho work I would have my life 
 judged by ! " 
 
340 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 Still, partially at least, her life will have to be 
 judged by this work, the life of a woman of nearly 
 sixty, broken by the strain of years, upon whom had 
 suddenly devolved an entirely new burden of re- 
 sponsibilities too great for any single mind to cope 
 with ; and the verdict will have to be that, while in 
 personal devotion no portion of her career surpassed 
 this, still in wisdom and practical efficiency it was 
 distinctly inferior to her work in her own great sphere. 
 Of its consecration of purpose there can be no ques- 
 tion./Through the four long years of the war she 
 never took a day's furlough. Untiringly did she re- 
 main at her post, organizing bands of nurses, forward- 
 ing supplies, inspecting hospitals, and in many a case 
 of neglect and abuse making her name a salutary 
 terror. Especially in the early days of the war, be- 
 forethe Sanitary and Christian Commissions assumed 
 their later immense proportions, her labors proved the 
 means of relieving a large amount of suffering and 
 saving many a valuable life. From the outset her rep- 
 utation and wide range of acquaintance had rallied to 
 her side many of the most efficient nurses in the land, 
 while the trust reposed in her by humane and patriotic 
 minds had led to there being placed at her disposal 
 immense stores of invaluable supplies. No doubt, 
 farther, through the very height of the demand she 
 made for absolute devotion to the cause of the soldier, 
 and the fiery zeal with which she joined battle with 
 all that fell below the mark, she helped to raise the 
 standard. This unquestionably made her very un- 
 popular with many; to which she would no doubt 
 have replied, " Woe unto you when all men speak 
 well of you ! " 
 
 In dealing with the question of popularity, espe- 
 
OUTBREAK OF WAR. ' 341 
 
 cially in democratic America where this especial virtue 
 outranks faith, hope, and charity, it is always hard 
 to hold the balance of praise or blame strictly even. 
 What seems to have been the fault of Miss Dix's ad- 
 ministration of her responsible office, namely, an over- 
 wrought zeal precipitating her at times into intemper- 
 ate action, and thus impairing that singular balance of 
 faculties through which her previous successes had 
 been achieved, has, perhaps, been sufficiently dwelt 
 on. 
 
 In summary, however, of the impression left by her 
 at this period of her career on minds kindred to her 
 own in absolute devotion to duty, no higher testimo- 
 nial can be offered than in the following extract from 
 a letter of one whose services to the sick and wounded 
 in the war won the admiration of all, Dr. Caroline A. 
 Burghardt : 
 
 u She was [writes Dr. Burgliardt] a very retiring, sen- 
 sitive woman, yet brave and bold as a lion to do battle for 
 the right and for justice. She was very unpopular in the 
 war with surgeons, nurses, and any others, who failed to do 
 their whole duty, and they disliked to sed her appear, as she 
 was sure to do if needed. . . She was one who found no 
 time to make herself famous with pen and paper, but a 
 hard, earnest worker, living in the most severely simple 
 manner, often having to be reminded that she needed food. 
 . . To those of us who were privileged to know her, her 
 memory is, and ever will be, very dear. Every day recalls 
 some of her noble acts of kindness and self-sacrifice to mind. 
 She seemed to me to lead a dual life, one for the outside 
 world, the other for her trusted, tried friends." 
 
 One massive character was there, however, in Wash- 
 ing-ton, the great War Secretary, Edwin M. Stanton, 
 on whom no outcry of unpopularity against Miss Dix 
 could produce any effect. Accustomed himself to do 
 
342 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 his duty at all risks, unpopularity reaped in doing it 
 was in his eyes a commendation of fidelity rather than 
 a reproach. So high was his sense of the country's in- 
 debtedness to the woman, who had been first on the 
 ground and was last to quit the post of duty, that at 
 the close of war, he appealed to her to know in what 
 shape it would be most agreeable to her to have her 
 services officially recognized. A great public meeting 
 presided over by the highest officials, or a vote of 
 money from Congress were proposed. These Miss 
 Dix absolutely declined. What, then, would she like ? 
 was asked. " The Flags of my Country," she replied, 
 never deeming that her request would be granted. 
 A beautiful pair of the national colors were specially 
 directed by government to be made for her, and the fol- 
 lowing order was issued from the War Department : 
 
 "WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON CITY, 
 
 " December 3, 1866. 
 
 " Order in Relation to the Services of Miss Dix. 
 "In token and acknowledgment of the inestimable services 
 rendered by Miss Dorothea L. Dix for the Care, Succor, 
 and Relief of the Sick and Wounded Soldiers of the United 
 States on the Battle-Field, in Camps and Hospitals during the 
 recent War, and of her benevolent and diligent labors and 
 devoted efforts to whatever might contribute to their com- 
 fort and welfare, it is ordered that a Stand of Arms of 
 the United States National Colors be presented to Miss Dix. 
 " EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War." 
 
 January 14, 1867, the execution of the above order 
 was communicated in the ensuing letter : 
 
 "WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT GENERAL'S OFFICE, 
 
 " WASHINGTON, January 14, 1867. 
 " Miss D. L. Dix, No. 2 Pearl St., Boston, Mass. 
 
 " MY DEAR Miss Dix, I have the pleasure of sending 
 by express this day, in obedience to an order of Mr. Stan- 
 
OUTBREAK O/-' WAR. 343 
 
 ton, Secretary of War, a box containing a Stand of the 
 United States Colors presented to you by the Secretary. I 
 trust they will arrive safely. 
 
 " With great respect, your obedient servant. 
 
 "E. D. TOWNSEND." 
 
 To these communications Miss Dix made reply : 
 
 To GENERAL E. D. TOWNSEND. 
 
 "ALBANY, N. Y., January 25, 1867. 
 
 u DEAR SIR, I am just in receipt of your letter of the 
 14th, and acknowledge with the deep emotion of a patriotic 
 heart my sense of the honor conferred by the presentation 
 through you from the Secretary of War of a Stand of the 
 United States Colors. No greater distinction could have 
 been conferred on me, and the value of this gift is greatly 
 enhanced by the quiet manner in which it is bestowed. 
 
 " Respectfully, D. L. Dix." 
 
 To HONORABLE EDWIN M. STANTON. 
 
 "ALBANY, N. Y., January 25, 1867. 
 
 " SIR, I beg to express my sense of the honorable dis- 
 tinction conferred on me by the Secretary of War, in the 
 presentation of a Stand of United States Colors received by 
 order through Assistant Adjutant General Townsend. No 
 more precious gift could have been bestowed, and no pos- 
 session will be so prized while life remains to love and 
 serve my country. 
 
 " Very respectfully and with well-grounded esteem, 
 
 "D. L. Dix." 
 
 These beautiful flags were bequeathed by Miss Dix 
 to Harvard College, where, in the noble Memorial 
 Hall dedicated to the Sons of Harvard who died for 
 their Country in the War for the Maintenance of the 
 Union, they to-day hang, suspended over the main 
 portal. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 BUILDS A MONUMENT. 
 
 WITH the close of the war came honorable dis- 
 charge from the service to hundreds of thousands of 
 soldiers, officers, surgeons, and nurses. " Home, 
 Sweet Home ! " was now the rejoicing air struck up 
 by the regimental bands. To a nature like Miss 
 Dix's, however, this could not be. She had no home. 
 She was a stranger and a pilgrim on the earth. She 
 asked no discharge this side the grave. For her, then, 
 another, but still a martial strain, must be taken up 
 by drum and trumpet, set to the words of her favo- 
 rite hymn, 
 
 " A soldier's life, from battles won 
 
 To new commencing 1 strife, 
 
 A pilgrim's, restless as the Sun, 
 
 Behold the Christian's life." 
 
 Almost inevitably had it come about, through her 
 duties as superintendent of women nurses that she 
 should have assumed an immense number of commis- 
 sions from soldiers dying in hospitals under her 
 charge, commissions which involved large correspon- 
 dence with their families. Moreover, for hundreds 
 who had been wounded and had ultimately recovered, 
 as well as for large numbers of nurses, who had be- 
 come invalided in their work and were left poor and 
 unprovided for, had she undertaken the role of volun- 
 teer pension agent. All this crowded her with work 
 for eighteen months to come. Her authority with the 
 
BUILDS A MONUMENT. 345 
 
 War Department here rendered her services to great 
 numbers of the humble and uninfluential, invalua- 
 ble. 
 
 No long time went by, however, before her ardent 
 sympathies became enlisted in another work, the 
 work this time of erecting an enduring monument to 
 the memory of the thousands of brave men who lay, 
 sleeping their last sleep, in the newly-established Na- 
 tional Cemetery, at Hampton, Virginia, near Fortress 
 Monroe. On this, to her hallowed ground, had she re- 
 ceived too many dying messages from the soldiers she 
 so loved, not to make the work seem to her a conse- 
 crated duty. 
 
 The first idea of such a monument had been conceived 
 by others, who, either wearying in the task of raising 
 the necessary funds for it, or, unequal to doing it, felt 
 that they must transfer the burden to the shoulders of 
 this overtasked woman, who swiftly and gladly took it 
 up. To her it seemed a disloyal outrage that so de- 
 vout a memorial should not be erected. Few shared 
 so strong a sense of the duty of a nation's enduringly 
 commemorating in bronze and stone its obligation to 
 its martyrs to liberty, as the very woman who always 
 refused point-blank to have her own name connected 
 with any of her great works. It is a seeming incon- 
 sistency not uncommon with the order of minds to 
 which she belonged. No doubt John Howard would 
 have subscribed most liberally to a monument for any 
 other philanthropist, while leaving behind, in far-away 
 Cherson, the strict order, " Bury me where I die, and 
 let me be forgotten." 
 
 The first allusion to any personal connection of 
 Miss Dix with this projected monument is found in a 
 letter to Mrs. William Rathbone, an extract from 
 
346 LIFE OP DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 which will attest the depth of the feelings that had 
 moved the writer to undertake the work. 
 
 "WASHINGTON, D. C., August IS, 1866. 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND, ... Lately I have collected in 
 a quiet way among my friends $8,000, with which to erect 
 a granite monument in a cemetery at Fortress Monroe where 
 are interred more than 6,000 of our brave, loyal soldiers. 
 ... I had especial direction over most of these martyred 
 to a sacred cause, and never forget the countless last mes- 
 sages of hundreds of dying men to fathers, mothers, wives, 
 and children ; never forget the calm, manly fortitude which 
 sustained them through the anguish of mortal wounds and 
 the agonies of dissolution. Nothing, in a review of the 
 past four years' war, so astonishes me as the uniformly calm 
 and firm bearing of these soldiers of a good cause, dying 
 without a murmur as they had suffered without a com- 
 plaint. Thank Heaven the war is over. I would that its 
 memories also could pass away." 
 
 Once making herself responsible that the monu- 
 ment should, and so, necessarily, would, be built, Miss 
 Dix set to work with her usual energy. She was by 
 nature a builder, and always happier in dealing with 
 those reliable and tangible servants of God, stone and 
 iron, lime and hydraulic cement, rock foundations, 
 than with the hay, wood, and stubble of politicians. 
 She meant that, as a structure, this should be a monu- 
 ment that would tell its story of self-sacrifice for gen- 
 erations to come. With this end in view, weeks were 
 spent by her in visiting quarry after quarry along the 
 sea-coast of Maine, till she should find a granite of 
 such imperishable quality as fitly to symbolize to her 
 the granite in the character of the men whose name 
 and fame it was to repeat to their children's children. 
 " It promises to stand for centuries unless an earth- 
 
BUILDS A MONUMENT. 347 
 
 quake should shake it clown," was her own word of 
 happy congratulation when at last the structure stood 
 completed. 
 
 Contributions now flowed in rapidly in response to 
 the appeals she made, and by December 11, 1867, all 
 was in such state of forwardness that she could write 
 to her friend Mrs. Torrey : tk Reaching Washington, 
 I proceeded at once to the Ordnance Bureau to see 
 Major General Dyer, wrote a letter to General Grant, 
 which was signed 4 approved ' by General Dyer, ask- 
 ing for 1,000 muskets and bayonets, 15 rifled guns, 
 and a quantity of 24-pound shot, with which to con- 
 struct my fence. I am rather gratified that every bill 
 has been paid as soon as forwarded." So energeti- 
 cally was the work then pushed that early in May, 
 1868, the completed monument was handed over to 
 the care of the United States Government, and the 
 following letter received from Secretary Stanton : 
 
 "WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON CITY, May 12, 1868. 
 " DEAR MADAM, Inasmuch as by the Act of Congress 
 the National Cemeteries are placed in charge of the Secre- 
 tary of War, and under his direction, I accept with pleasure 
 the tender of this memorial to our gallant dead, and return 
 the thanks of the Department to the public-spirited citizens 
 who have furnished the means for erecting it ; and to your- 
 self for your arduous, patriotic, humane, and benevolent la- 
 bors in bringing to a successful completion such a noble tes- 
 timonial to our gallant dead who perished in the war to 
 maintain their government and suppress the rebellion. 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 " EDWIN M. STANTON, Secretary of War' 1 
 
 In another and less ceremonious vein, now humor- 
 ously writes to Miss Dix his felicitations, her dear old 
 asylum friend, Dr. Isaac Ray. 
 
348 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 '* I congratulate you [he says] on the completion of your 
 Monument. With so much stone and iron on your shoul- 
 ders, I do not wonder you got sick. Pray, do take a lighter 
 load the next time you undertake to shoulder other people's 
 burdens." 
 
 In the National Cemetery in which this memorial 
 stands, there sleep to-day, under the shade of the 
 magnolias and cedars, more than twelve thousand 
 Union soldiers, to whose ranks each year contributes 
 its fresh quotum from the fast-vanishing inmates of the 
 great Soldiers' Home close at hand. The monument 
 itself is an obelisk of syenite rising to a height of 
 seventy-five feet, and resting on a massive base twenty- 
 seven feet square. It is inclosed with a circular fence 
 of musket-barrels, bayonets, and rifled cannon set in 
 heavy blocks of stone. The impression it makes on 
 the mind is simple, dignified, and martial. On it is 
 set the inscription, " In Memory of Union Soldiers 
 who Died to maintain the Laws." The first object 
 visible over the low level of the peninsula to vessels 
 coming in from sea to the Roads, it stands the rever- 
 ential tribute of a heroic woman to the heroic men 
 she honored with all her soul. 
 
CHAPTEE XXX. 
 
 RESUMES HOSPITAL WORK. 
 
 HER last duties connected with the war at an end, 
 Miss Dix, now sixty-five years old, took up once again 
 her old asylum work, never relaxing in the fidelity 
 with which she pursued it, till, at the age of eighty, 
 she retired incapacitated for further service, to the 
 shelter gratefully tendered her by the Board of Mana- 
 gers of the Asylum in Trenton, N. J., her "First-born 
 Child." 
 
 That the impoverishment wrought by war in the 
 Southern and Southwestern States must have left all 
 institutions of charity in a deplorable condition, she 
 was clearly enough convinced. But the old glad wel- 
 come with which she had once been cheered in her 
 work there, was it not over forever, love turned to 
 hate, blessing to reviling and cursing? Fully had she 
 herself shared the consuming wrath with which sensi- 
 tive natures were in those days inflamed, and unspar- 
 ingly had she denounced what had seemed to her the 
 wanton wickedness of the action of the South. When, 
 in the course of her duties as superintendent of 
 nurses, she had had to receive back and care for great 
 bodies of Union soldiers just released from the South- 
 ern prisons, starved to skeletons and idiotic with the 
 misery they had undergone, it had seemed to her, in 
 the bitterness of her soul, that she could never again 
 shake hands with those she had once so warmly 
 loved. 
 
350 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 Great, then, was her surprise and delight at finding 
 that in her case at least an exception was made to 
 the vindictive feelings inevitably engendered by war. 
 The old memories of love and admiration had survived 
 as fresh as ever, and the old sense of grateful depend- 
 ence on her for services no one else could render 
 found immediate, imploring expression just as in by- 
 gone days. Yes, the condition of things was deplor- 
 able, all told her, but to whom could they look for 
 help but to her ! 
 
 From the large number of beseeching letters that 
 now came to her, limitations of space forbid more 
 than the selection of a single typical example, an 
 example, however, which pathetically illustrates the 
 grief felt by devoted friends of the insane over the 
 ruin that had been wrought in the South, and which 
 at the same time testifies to the yearning of heart with 
 which their old-time benefactor was looked to for aid. 
 The extracts given are from a letter of Mr. Alfred 
 Huger, of Charleston, S. C. Though not written till 
 the beginning of 1870, the letter shows the thankful- 
 ness awakened in so many minds by the bare fact that 
 Miss Dix was now once more on the field. 
 
 "CHARLESTON, S. C., January 31, 1870. 
 
 " MY DEAR MADAM, I have just heard of your arrival 
 at Columbia ! The Past, the Present, and the Future, are 
 by this announcement grouped before me. It is the instinct 
 of the afflicted to be aroused and encouraged when your 
 name is mentioned. Ruin and desolation hold their court 
 among us. Our poor little State is sinking under a weight 
 of calamity and of woe, our temples are draped in mourning, 
 and our hearts are in the dust. Still, we flock to the altar 
 when the High Priestess is there. . . . 
 
 " I was one of the founders of the lunatic asylum. 
 
RESUMES HOSPITAL WORK. 851 
 
 Everywhere and at all times I have watched its progress. 
 During the war I was in daily, almost hourly, interchange 
 with our valued friend, Dr. Parker, and with that household 
 of wounded minds over which he presides, and, as we be- 
 lieve, doing so with a holy purpose. Dr. Parker is the 
 father, brother, and friend, the very * shield and buckler ' 
 of our stricken brethren. 
 
 " We have heard, like a summons to meet death, of his 
 possible removal, and we have heard also of your providen- 
 tial advent. If the authorities that rule over us select this 
 man as a victim, or if Dr. Parker himself can endure his 
 surroundings no longer, then there is an agony upon us, and 
 may we not appeal to you for succor and for help. . . . We 
 look to you both as the vicegerents of ' Our Father who is in 
 Heaven,' and we cannot look in vain, and we must not look 
 in vain, and we will not look in vain ! Dr. Parker has no 
 equal in our State for the position he occupies. You have 
 no superior, with your mission signed in the High Chancery 
 of Heaven, and witnessed by angels who do justice and love 
 mercy. 
 
 " In this hour of our trial, a word of information or of 
 consolation from you would be a boon and a blessing." 
 " Faithfully and with profound respect, 
 
 "ALFRED HUGER." 
 
 
 
 To appreciate the desolation of spirit that finds 
 vent in the above letter it is necessary to call to mind 
 the actual condition of things then prevailing in South 
 Carolina. The State was under the control of a 
 legislature packed almost solid with brutal plantation 
 negroes. The influential leaders who swayed them 
 were largely " carpet-bag " politicians from the North, 
 the picturesque title then given to a class of rapacious 
 adventurers, whose worldly possessions, consisting 
 solely in an extra shirt and a pair of socks, could 
 hardly as yet aspire to the dignity of a trunk. Later, 
 
352 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 indeed they meant to have one, and to have it packed 
 full. What would be the inevitable policy of such a 
 legislature and such leaders toward a State Insane 
 Asylum can readily be conceived. It would be to put 
 in some ignorant, thievish black as steward, some 
 greedy, half-educated white doctor as superintendent, 
 and in the same way to dispose of the rest of the 
 legitimate spoils of office. The condition of things 
 was worse in South Carolina than in the other South- 
 ern States. Still, something analagous to this was in 
 danger of prevailing in them all. 
 
 No wonder, then, that in the misery of his position, 
 Dr. Parker should have written vehemently to Miss 
 Dix in reply to a letter from her counseling patience. 
 Patience ! patience ! The regents of his asylum were 
 hall: or two thirds negroes. They had apparently got 
 wind of certain of the ways of Europe and had made 
 the happy discovery of a new official genus, hitherto 
 unknown, called the " pluralist ; " on the strength of 
 which discovery they had bestowed three offices in the 
 asylum on a single person totally unfit to discharge the 
 duties of any one of them. On Dr. Parker's reporting 
 the delinquencies of the man, the culprit had defiantly 
 written to the regents : u Everything will go on well, 
 if you (the regents) can have your own way, but not 
 if the superintendent is to have his." Happily, one 
 negro regent had the good sense to administer, in his 
 own peculiar vernacular, the following sound rebuke : 
 " Well, Dr. H., the superintendent is the man to have 
 his way ; he is boss, and we will not have two bosses." 
 At the close of his letter, Dr. Parker says, "If any 
 one can save our cherished institution from ruin, you 
 are the person." 
 
 Now already in the previous two years of 1868 and 
 
RESUMES HOSPITAL WORK. 353 
 
 1869 had Miss Dix been at work with her old success 
 in the Northern and Middle States. Spite of war the 
 national population had been steadily growing. The 
 demands, moreover, on such institutions as the Army 
 and Navy Asylum in Washington had advanced a 
 hundred-fold through the vast increase of the military 
 and naval forces. To help to meet all these new ex- 
 igencies, her energies were taxed to the extreme, and 
 at times there comes from her a cry of agony and 
 despair. Resuming once again her old inspection of 
 almshouses and jails, she finds the melancholy condi- 
 tion of things to which she had at the outset called 
 such effective attention, renewing itself through the 
 inadequacy of existing institutions to cope with the 
 growth of population and the tide of immigration. 
 " It would seem," she breaks out in sadness to her 
 friend Mrs. Torrey, " that all my work is to be done 
 over so far as the insane are concerned. ' Language 
 is poor to describe the miserable state of these poor 
 wretches in dungeon cells. I did not think I was to 
 find here in this year 1868 such monstrous abuses." 
 
 Still encouraging results continued to cheer her. 
 Thus, May 6, 1868, Professor Sillhnan writes her 
 from New Haven, Conn. : 
 
 " It is just two years this month since you came here to 
 move this matter, and now the first patients are in the New 
 Hospital building. How much we all owe you for your 
 timely aid, courage, and energy, without which this noble 
 work would not have been undertaken, certainly for many 
 years ! And it was all done so quietly ! The springs of 
 influence were touched in a way which shows how possible 
 it is to do great and noble things in public assemblies with- 
 out a lobby or the use of money." 
 
 Equally in Washington does she meet a like suc- 
 cess, while of Pennsylvania she can write : 
 
354 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 " Tomorrow I go to the Northeastern district of the 
 State to find a farm of 300 acres for the third hospital, for 
 which I have got an appropriation of $200,000. 
 
 It was well that the encouraging stimulus of yearly 
 success should thus come to the woman nearing the 
 age of seventy, on whose shoulders such a burden 
 rested. One by one, she now took up the cause of 
 the many asylums she had founded, laboring indefat- 
 igably toward their restoration and enlargement and 
 toward infusing into the minds of new legislatures 
 liberal and rational ideas on the whole subject of the 
 treatment of insanity. From many an old asylum, 
 too, in full tide of prosperity, there now came to her 
 grateful remembrances. 
 
 " I trust [wrote to her, in 1871, Mr. John Harper, treas- 
 urer of the Dixmont Hospital in Pennsylvania] when the 
 warm weather comes, you will visit Dixmont and see for 
 yourself what a monument for humanity has been erected 
 and put into prosperous operation through your foresight 
 and exertions. Do you remember the day in my room in 
 the bank, when you urged the establishment of a new rural 
 
 hospital, and Judge opposed you so bitterly? The 
 
 judge was a man of great eloquence and influence, but you 
 beat him to his astonishment." 
 
 Earlier, too, on the occasion of the presentation of 
 a portrait of Miss Dix to this same Dixmont Asylum 
 by an unknown citizen of Pennsylvania, had Mr. Har- 
 per written the donor : 
 
 " You know, sir, in the olden time, each institution sacred 
 to charity had its patron saint. The Dixmont Hospital, not- 
 withstanding our Protestant and iconoclastic ideas, has a 
 patroness whom we respect and love ; indeed who is canon- 
 ized in our affections quite as strongly as were saintly ladies 
 in the Mediaeval Age. The mission of ' our Lady ' is to 
 
RESUMES HOSPITAL WORK, 355 
 
 create those noble institutions which aid in the restoration of 
 the dethroned reason, and Dixmont Hospital is one of the 
 jewels which will adorn her crown hereafter." 
 
 Enough has now been said to illustrate the nature 
 of the work that was to engage Miss Dix to the end 
 of her active days. Farther to particularize would be 
 but to weary the reader with a bare catalogue of 
 achievements, each indeed fraught with some shape of 
 succor to the miserable, but as a catalogue a mere 
 burden to the mind. From Maine to Texas, from 
 New York to San Francisco, she is henceforth perpet- 
 ually on the wing. The asylums scattered throughout 
 the length and breadth of the land have become to 
 her her children. How they are faring is the one 
 thought of her heart. Everywhere, on her arrival, 
 the keys of the wards are freely handed to her, and 
 she is allowed to wander round alone. She is recog- 
 nized as a " lunacy commission " in herself, so admi- 
 rable a one, indeed, that at even so late a date as 
 187 T, when she was then seventy-five years of age, Dr. 
 Charles F. Folsom, of Boston, Mass., could say of her 
 in his " Diseases of the Mind": " Her frequent visits 
 to our institutions of the insane now, and her search- 
 ing criticisms, constitute of themselves a better lunacy 
 commission than would be likely to be appointed in 
 many of our States." 
 
 The inevitable infirmities of age are now growing 
 on her. She is more silent and concentrated, more ab- 
 rupt and imperative, more the embodiment of habit 
 than of the earlier spontaneity and enthusiasm which 
 once irresistibly swept the legislatures of twenty States 
 before her. But her intellectual perceptions are as 
 clear and acute as ever. Nothing escapes her eye, 
 whether to be commended as meritorious or taken ex- 
 
356 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 ception to as faulty. No fear or favor sways her a 
 hair. Alike in the asylum of her earliest superinten- 
 dent friend, or in that of the latest appointee, she feels 
 that it is the question of the best good for the stricken 
 and miserable that is to dominate her own mind and 
 the minds of all. 
 
 Inevitably was there something trying to the heads 
 of asylums in the sudden and unexpected visitations of 
 this exceptional woman and her equally sudden de- 
 partures. She was the organized and embodied con- 
 science of the highest ideals of asylum management, 
 with a searching power of intellect and character that 
 few could encounter without a lurking feeling of 
 dread. The older members of the profession, who for 
 long years had known the inestimable value of her 
 services to the cause they stood for, understood that 
 no criticism would escape her that was not dictated by 
 the inmost sense of justice and kindness, and, farther, 
 that a vast experience lay behind it that would make 
 it worthy of their best consideration. But many of 
 the newer men in the newer States, who " knew not 
 Joseph," felt inclined to take exception to the quiet 
 but irresistible air of authority with which this woman, 
 of no outward official position, would arrive, see all and 
 judge all, and, perhaps, without a word of comment, 
 leave them feeling that alike the good and bad had 
 been weighed in the scales of even-handed justice. 
 
 A few even were there who were disposed to make 
 merry over this " self -constituted lunacy commission " 
 in the person of a single, aged woman. The story is 
 told of her once going into an asylum where she called 
 for a trial of the fire-extinguishing apparatus. It 
 proved to be out of order and useless, and she spoke 
 some words of stern rebuke. Later, it became the 
 
RESUMES HOSPITAL WORK. 357 
 
 habit of some of the younger doctors, of a supposedly- 
 humorous turn of mind, to refer to this incident as 
 furnishing the matter of an exquisitely funny story. 
 Vastly pleasant did they seem to find it to expatiate 
 on the consternation the " old lady " had caused by her 
 appalling demonstration that the whole elaborate sys- 
 tem for saving the buildings from conflagration was 
 absolutely worthless. 
 
 A vastly amusing story, no doubt, and yet one can 
 hardly avoid charitably wishing that a select few of 
 such humorously minded young doctors might be 
 compelled to serve an apprenticeship on a Cunard or 
 White Star steamship. What would they witness 
 there ? This : that the instant a certain signal is 
 sounded, whether in the dead of night, or at break of 
 day, or when dinner or supper is in full tide, every 
 waiter, every bedroom steward, every deck-hand, every 
 officer, drops on the spot whatever he is at, and runs 
 with lightning speed to take his appointed place at 
 the pumps or at the handling of the hose. Should it 
 then turn out even on this mere formal review 
 that the fire apparatus would not work, it is easy to 
 imagine the nature of the reception at the captain's 
 hands any responsible officer would get, who showed 
 a disposition to regard the miscarriage as a capital 
 joke. Miss Dix had had too fearful experience of in- 
 sane asylums burning to the ground and of scores of 
 wretched victims perishing, not to feel that such a 
 failure ought to be branded on the spot as guilt and 
 crime. 1 
 
 1 Even as this biography is going- through the press, there comes 
 from Montreal, Canada, the news of the total destruction by fire of an 
 immense insane asylum there, in which one hundred miserable vic- 
 tims were roasted alive. The asylum was provided with a complete 
 
LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 Perhaps, then, a fairer and more discriminating 
 picture can hardly be drawn of the salutary impres- 
 sion left by these comings and goings of Miss Dix on 
 minds kindred in moral earnestness with her own, 
 than is found in the ensuing letter of Mrs. Harriet C. 
 Kerlin, wife of the superintendent of the institution 
 for feeble-minded children at Elwyn, Penn. : 
 
 " Among our many visitors, there has never been one so 
 ready to praise the good found, and so agreeably to reprove 
 mistakes or failures. This may not always have been her 
 characteristic, but surely we met only the gentle, considerate 
 side of her nature, so that when Dr. Kerlin 'said, ' Miss Dix 
 won't you come up to see where our teachers have rooms ? ' 
 her reply, ' Oh, no ! doctor, I have never found any suffering 
 among officers of an institution/ was so frankly and half- 
 wittily spoken, it carried no offensive sarcasm. 
 
 " If she were found at 5 o'clock A. M. in an unusual place, 
 watching the early movements of our large family, her 
 kindly manner of telling what she had seen, right or wrong, 
 made us feel that sympathy with the superintendence 
 prompted her desire for as^ perfect management as possible, 
 and that no spirit of pleasure in spying out wrong had 
 caused her unexpected early walk. She never gossiped 
 about the weakness or faults of others. Her judgment was 
 given with consideration of accompanying circumstances. 
 Her language, voice, and manner were thoroughly gentle 
 and lady-like, yet so strong was she in intelligence and 
 and womanhood that at times I ranked her alone, and 
 above all other women." 
 
 The picture drawn in this letter of the inexorable 
 fidelity tempered with kindness and gentleness, of Miss 
 
 fire-extinguishing 1 apparatus. Only, as it turned out, the hose was 
 disconnected from the pumps, and the wrench mislaid. Before con- 
 nection could be made the flames had got too much headway to be 
 arrested. 
 
RESUMES HOSPITAL WORK. 359 
 
 Dix, weighed in connection with the fire-apparatus 
 story and her terrible power of rebuke, when rebuke 
 was demanded, will serve together to call up a vivid 
 idea of the manner of woman she was in these last 
 years of her active life. Pleasanter it no doubt was 
 to receive the visitation of duly appointed State in- 
 spectors, who would beam graciously and ignorantly 
 on the excellent condition in which they found every- 
 thing, take a glass of wine in the medicinal room of 
 the establishment, and then adjourn to a good dinner. 
 But this was not Miss Dix's way. From the hour in 
 which the terrible abyss of human suffering had been 
 opened to her, and a sacred voice within had sum- 
 moned her to consecrate her life to the service of these 
 miserable ones, her faith had never wavered that God 
 had eternally ordained her for this special mission. 
 It was to be no child's play, but a stern and awful 
 ordeal. Every day made it clearer to her that " Eter- 
 nal Vigilance is the Price " of justice and mercy to- 
 ward these outcasts of the world. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 THE LAST OF EAKTH. 
 
 FREQUENT allusion has been make in past chapters 
 to the eagerness with which Miss Dix seized every 
 opportunity to extend the blessings of a rational 
 and humane treatment of insanity into ^11 quarters of 
 the world. Very pleasant, then, is it to narrate one 
 more happy result of these widespread efforts, the 
 knowledge of which came to her as late as in 1875. 
 
 Years before, when first a charge d'affaires was 
 sent to Washington from Japan to represent its inter- 
 ests before the United States Government, had she 
 sought his acquaintance, and held long and earnest 
 interviews with him on the subject that lay nearest 
 her heart. Fortunately, in Jugoi Arinori Mori she 
 found a man of great intellectual capacity and large 
 humanity. Readers of this biography will recall the 
 shock produced in the minds of all true friends of 
 Japan by his assassination a year or more ago in his 
 own country at the hands of a fanatic. He had by 
 that time become acknowledged as the foremost states- 
 man in his native land. From him, came to Miss 
 Dix, in 1875, a letter which was one more illustration 
 of the wisdom of a favorite maxim with her, " Sow 
 beside all waters ! " 
 
 "ToKio, JAPAN, November 23, 1875. 
 
 " MY DEAR Miss Dix, During the long silence, do 
 not think I have been idle about the matter in which you 
 
THE LAST OF EARTH. 361 
 
 take so deep an interest. I have given the subject much of 
 my time and attention, and have successfully established an 
 asylum for the insane at Kiyoto, and another in this city is 
 being built and will soon be ready for its work of good. 
 Other asylums will follow, too, and I ardently hope they 
 will be the means of alleviating much misery. 
 " Very truly yours, 
 
 " ARINORI MORI." 
 
 Two more asylums in far-away Japan, with others 
 very likely to follow, were now to be added to the 
 thirty-two she had already been the instrument of 
 either founding outright or greatly enlarging. She 
 was accustomed to mark each one on a map with the 
 sign of the cross. Could all the prisons on new and 
 better plans she carried bills for, and all the alms- 
 houses she caused to be thoroughly reconstructed be 
 added to these, and then all brought vividly before the 
 mind's eye, how amazing would be the impression 
 left! 
 
 It was noted by benevolent minds in these latter 
 days of Miss Dix's career that, whenever any great ca- 
 lamity occurred like the terrible fires which destroyed 
 such large portions of Chicago and Boston, she was 
 sure soon to appear on the spot with sums of money 
 she had collected from her many friends, and quietly 
 and judiciously searching out for herself where help 
 was most needed, or what persons already on hand 
 could be relied on to expend the fund most wisely, 
 would seek to do her part in mitigating the wide-spread 
 distress. Not human beings alone, but the brute cre- 
 ation likewise appealed to her unfailing compassion. 
 Thus among her other projects of relief in these days 
 was that of setting up a drinking fountain in a densely 
 thronged part of Boston where she had noticed that 
 
362 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 the draught- horses were subjected to the hardest work. 
 It was her application to the Poet Whittier to send 
 her the translation of an Arabic inscription cut on the 
 curb of a similar fountain in the East, an inscription 
 the beauty of which had struck her when he had re- 
 peated it on a previous occasion, which called out from 
 
 him the ensuing letter : 
 
 " OAK KNOLL, ISth Sth Mo., 1879. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND, I cannot recall the Arabic in- 
 scription I referred to for the fountain, and have written 
 one myself, taking it for granted that the fountain was to 
 be thy gift, though thee did not say so. 
 
 u Such a gift would not be inappropriate for one who all 
 her life has been opening fountains in the desert of human 
 suffering, who, to use Scripture phrase, has ' passed over 
 the dry valley of Baca, making it a well.' 
 
 " With love and reverence thy friend, 
 
 "JOHN G. WHITTIER." 
 
 " Stranger and traveler ! 
 
 Drink freely and bestow 
 A kindly thought on her 
 
 Who bade this fountain flow ; 
 Yet hath for it no claim 
 
 Save as the minister 
 Of blessing 1 in God's name." 
 
 Whatever the strength, however, or whatever the 
 power of the inspiring motive, there must come an 
 end to every mortal tether. In October, 1881, worn 
 out with fatigue, Miss Dix went for rest to one of her 
 hospital homes, the Trenton, New Jersey, Asylum, 
 which she was destined never again to leave. Pre- 
 vious to this, the last characteristic glimpse of her 
 is caught in the following account related by Dr. 
 George F. Jelly, former Superintendent of the Mc- 
 Lean Asylum. 
 
 She arrived at my house in Boston, said, in sub- 
 
THE LAST OF EARTH. 363 
 
 stance, Dr. Jelly, after nightfall one bitter, snowy 
 winter evening. She seemed chilled to the marrow, 
 and said she would go straight to bed. I offered her 
 my assistance in mounting the staircase, but she de- 
 clined every aid. The furnace draughts were opened 
 for greater heat, a large fire was kept blazing in the 
 grate of her bedroom, my wife piled five or six blan- 
 kets on her, and I administered some warming drink. 
 Spite of all she shivered with cold and would, I felt 
 sure, succumb to pneumonia. She was on one of her 
 tours of inspection, and had ordered the carriage to 
 come for her in the early morning. Nothing could 
 move her to change her plan, and when morning came 
 she was up and ready to start. It was still a bitter 
 snowstorm. I begged her at least to let me go with 
 her to the station, for I feared she might die before 
 she reached her destination. No ! she would go alone. 
 She was used to such things, she said, and, as soon as 
 she had got through her work in New England, would 
 go farther South, where she always became better 
 soon. 
 
 Something pathetic and painful is there in such a 
 narrative of exposure in extreme old age ; something 
 sad and hard to be reconciled to in this refusal of so 
 much as the helping hand of a strong man in mount- 
 ing the staircase on tottering feet, the refusal, too, 
 by one whose whole long life had been a ceaseless min- 
 istry to others. Still, the anecdote is too characteris- 
 tic to be omitted, revealing, as it does, such persist- 
 ence to the end of the indomitable will power that had 
 led on to such vast achievement. 
 
 From Trenton, however, there was to be no more 
 going forth. Those thousand-mile journeys from 
 Halifax to Texas, from New York to San Francisco, 
 were now over forever. 
 
364 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 To the great credit of the managers of the New 
 Jersey State Asylum, no sooner was it known that Miss 
 Dix was seriously ill in the asylum, and unlikely ever 
 again to be strong enough to leave it, than they called 
 a meeting and passed a unanimous vote, inviting her 
 to end her days under the roof of the institution she 
 had founded, as its loved and revered guest. The 
 managers of this institution had always manifested 
 toward her singular gratitude and respect. Roomy 
 and comfortable apartments were assigned her, where 
 she preferred they should be, under the pediment of 
 the great Greek portico which forms the facade of the 
 main building, apartments commanding a superb view 
 of the park-like grounds, the open country, and the 
 beautiful sweep of Delaware Eiver. 
 
 The private resources of Miss Dix would at this 
 time have amply sufficed to maintain her in comfort 
 during her declining years. But it was an indication 
 of her high self-respect of character, that she should 
 have felt the fitness of thus ending her days as the 
 honored guest of one of the many institutions she had 
 founded, rather than in any private house. For half 
 a century she had had no home, but had been in every 
 fibre of her being a public character. The asylums 
 were her children, and that, when worn out and in- 
 capacitated for farther service, one of these children 
 should thus take her and care for her beneath its roof- 
 tree, seemed to her but in the natural order of family 
 love and duty. Moreover, the passion of doing for 
 others had become absolute in her nature. She had 
 a large list of dependents for whose wants she was 
 always providing, and the one luxury that remained 
 to her was the power of being able to continue this to 
 the end. Beyond the grave, even, stretched the longing 
 
THE LAST OF EARTH, 365 
 
 
 
 to be still of use on earth. An intense solicitude had 
 now taken possession of her to preserve unbroken the 
 capital of her property, and to leave it in trust so that 
 the income of it should be devoted in perpetuity to 
 charitable objects. Thus the instinct of saving, which 
 in extreme eld age is the almost invariable accom- 
 paniment of human nature, assumed in her case the 
 character of what had ever been the master passion of 
 her life. 
 
 For more than five years Miss Dix was now des- 
 tined to linger on in her hospital home. They were 
 years of great suffering from exhaustion, and the 
 pain of the steadily-advancing disease of which she 
 died, ossification of the lining membranes of the 
 arteries. Imprisonment within the narrow walls of 
 her rooms came doubly hard to her, as always to 
 overpoweringly active natures. Still no complaint 
 escaped her lips. " It was all right it should be so," 
 she said, "it was God's will, only it was hard to 
 bear." Life had at no period seemed child's play to 
 her, but a stern though merciful ordeal. Her Bible 
 and collections of sacred poetry were now her stay 
 and comfort. In hymns, especially, the utterance of 
 the suffering and triumphant ones of all the ages, she 
 heard the voices that came home to her with the 
 greatest power and peace. Never a letter she wrote to 
 dear friends with trembling hand that did not contain 
 some of these cherished lines. 
 
 Meanwhile, old friends did not forget her. From 
 far places would they travel to spend an hour with 
 her, while the older superintendents of asylums kept 
 her duly informed of all that was going on in the 
 world in which she had so long lived, or sent her from 
 their annual meetings greetings of respect and love. 
 
366 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 % 
 
 A few of the letters that came to her in her asylum 
 home will serve to make vivid the nature and sweet- 
 ness of the consolations that helped her through these 
 last five years of imprisonment, weariness, and pain. 
 They came in great numbers, alike from private and 
 from well-known persons. 
 
 December 31, 1882, writes knightly Dr. Kirkbride 
 as follows : 
 
 "In three hours more, 1882 will belong to the past. 
 May that which follows it bring to you, my most valued and 
 honored friend, all the happiness that can come from a life 
 devoted to good works and to the relief of the afflicted." 
 
 Shortly after, comes greeting from her once pupil 
 and life-long friend, Mrs. John Kebler, of Cincin- 
 nati : 
 
 " I never think of you as grown old. You always come 
 to me as I knew you first, crowned with rich brown hair, 
 the like of which no one else ever had. Of all your pupils 
 I am sure none loved you as I did and do. Few days of 
 all my life have been unblessed by loving, grateful thoughts 
 of the gracious, graceful teacher and friend. Always shall 
 I connect with you, if I remain longer than you, that lovely 
 hymn of Whittier, and my prayer shall be, 
 
 " * Still, let thy mild rebukings stand 
 
 Between me and the wrong, 
 And thy dear memory serve to make 
 My faith in goodness strong.' " 
 
 May 6, 1882, arrives a remembrance of cheer and 
 consolation from Mr. Whittier himself : 
 
 " OAK KNOLL, DANVERS, MASS. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND, I am glad to know that thou art 
 with kind friends, and as comfortable as possible under the 
 circumstances. Thou hast done so much for others that it 
 is right for thee now, in age and illness, to be kindly minis- 
 
THE LAST OF EARTH. 367 
 
 tered to. He who has led thee in thy great work of benev- 
 olence will never leave thee nor forsake thee. 
 
 " With a feeling of almost painful un worthiness, I read 
 thy overkind words as regards myself. I wish I could feel 
 that I deserved them. But compared with such a life as 
 thine, my own seems poor and inadequate. But none the 
 less do I thank thee for thy generous appreciation. 
 
 " May the blessing of our Father in Heaven rest upon 
 thee, dear friend ! Believe me always and gratefully thy 
 friend, " JOHN G. WHITTIER." 
 
 Of course so old and tried a friend, so kindred a 
 spirit with her own in love and sacrifice, as Rev. Wil- 
 liam G. Eliot, D. D., of St. Louis, did not forget her 
 now in her loneliness and pain. From his many let- 
 ters, let the following short extract and accompanying 
 lines serve to show the loving tenor : 
 
 " We think and speak of you very often, and in spirit I 
 spend many hours with you daily. Last night young Mr. 
 Nichols, grandson of your old friend in Portland, was here, 
 and we talked of you an hour. . . . After he left me, I 
 wrote these lines before going to bed. They are a part of 
 the truth, the whole of which cannot be told. ... If love 
 and gratitude and prayer could save you from all suffering 
 and anxiety, no pain nor loneliness of feeling would ever 
 reach you. 
 
 " Dear Sister, in thy lonely hours of suffering 1 and pain, 
 
 Take comfort ! The ten thousand prayers cannot ascend in vain, 
 
 From hearts which thou hast comforted and homes which thou hast 
 
 cheered, 
 
 And children, saved from ignorance, whose pathway thou hast cleared, 
 From loyal hearts and homes, wherever they are found, 
 In palaces and cottages, with peace and honor crowned. 
 
 " Dear Sister, thou art not alone, God's angels hover near ; 
 His presence is thy sure defense, then what hast thou to fear ? 
 
35S Lll-E OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 The ' good fight ' thou hast nobly fought and truly ' kept the 
 
 faith ; ' 
 
 The ' crown ' awaits thee, Sister dear, the ' victory over death ; ' 
 Take courage then, dear friend ! The ' prize ' is almost won ; 
 Hark! 'Tis the Saviour's voice we hear, 'Servant of God, well 
 
 done! '" 
 
 " Your Brother-friend, 
 
 W. G. ELIOT." 
 
 Similar testimonials of love and veneration from 
 men and women foremost in all good works through- 
 out the country, as well as from kindred spirits on 
 the other side of the Atlantic, might be indefinitely 
 multiplied. Let them conclude, however, with an ex- 
 tract from a letter of one of the younger men in the 
 battle of humanity, General S. C. Armstrong, a man 
 who, brave as the bravest throughout the war for the 
 preservation of the Union, as soon as peace sounded, 
 " beat his sword into a plowshare and his spear into a 
 pruning hook," and thenceforth labored with the zeal 
 of an apostle to make self-respecting and useful Amer- 
 ican citizens out of the ignorant and degraded negro 
 freedmen. In his first effort to reduce to order the 
 chaos and anarchy of the whole region about Hamp- 
 ton, Virginia, and to establish an industrial and 
 Christianizing school of instruction there, he had 
 found no stancher friend or wiser adviser than Miss 
 Dix. 
 
 " You are one of my heroes," he now wrote to her in her 
 last retreat. " My ideal is not one who gives the flush and 
 strength of youth to good work, for who can help doing 
 so when a chance opens ! He is a traitor who declines the 
 chance, just as is he who does n't fight for his country when 
 it needs him, and he can possibly go. But you kept in the 
 field long past your best days. Your grit and resolve have 
 been wonderful. Faithfully yours, 
 
 "S. C. ARMSTRONG." 
 
THE LAST OF EARTH. 369 
 
 Two years after the death of Miss Dix, there ap- 
 peared in the " New York Home Journal," of Septem- 
 ber 11, 1889, an article embodying reminiscences of 
 her traits of character and of incidents in her career. 
 It was from the pen of a valued personal friend of 
 her earlier years, Mrs. S. C. P. Miller. The picture 
 drawn in it of these last days of Miss Dix's life in 
 her asylum home is at once so touching, and so 
 stamped with that exceedingly rare endowment of hu- 
 man beings, the power to see what is actually before 
 their eyes, as to render it a positive addition to any 
 attempt to interpret her character. 
 
 " Accidentally meeting [says Mrs. Miller] an oldtime 
 friend from Washington, she mentioned a recent visit to 
 Miss Dix. 
 
 " Eagerly inquiring about her, I learned that she was a 
 confirmed invalid, occupying apartments in the Insane Asy- 
 lum at Trenton, which had been given to her by the State 
 of New Jersey in acknowledgment of her agency in secur- 
 ing the erection of the building. At the earliest moment 
 I went over to see her, sending up my card, with much mis- 
 giving as to her memory of me. Immediately I was taken 
 to her rooms in the tower. She was glowing in her wel- 
 come. * I told them to bring you right up, for I was so im- 
 patient to, see my friend that I would not wait a minute.' 
 
 " She was propped up in bed and greatly altered. She 
 was unable to walk, and for several years had not even been 
 carried outside of her own rooms, and to this utter helpless- 
 ness were added paroxysms of intense pain. ' The doctor 
 does not encourage me to hope that I shall ever be better,' 
 she told me ; ' but he comforts me with the assurance that 
 I am in no danger of ever losing my reason.' . . . 
 
 " She was curious to know whether I would have recog- 
 nized her, so curious, indeed, as to embarrass me in the re- 
 ply that I should not have done so in an unexpected meet- 
 
370 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 ing. ... I seized the occasion to say : ' You should be at 
 the pains, Miss Dix, to arrange that you go down to poster- 
 ity in that beautiful portrait of you in the Atheneum at 
 Boston.' A smile of satisfaction brightened her face at the 
 suggestion, and I was amused to see that even the good 
 and great, and strong and old, possessed, in common with 
 their weaker sisters, a keen relish of a gentle insinuation of 
 personal beauty. 
 
 " It was evident to me that her helplessness did not ex- 
 tend either to her head or hands, for soon I saw that her 
 warmest interest was still flowing in its long-accustomed 
 channel, and that from her sick room lines of communica- 
 tion ran in every direction to the outside world. She spoke 
 of the gift made to her of her rooms with much gratifica- 
 tion. Her sense of home seemed wholly centered in them. 
 The cosey little bedroom opened into a small, bright parlor, 
 from the windows of which was an exquisite view of the 
 grounds and distant landscape. . . . 
 
 " ' Are you strong enough,' I asked her on one occasion, 
 * to use your pen as in former times ? ' Summoning the 
 nurse she had some loose sheets handed to me, saying, i I 
 wrote these and had them printed by the Indian boys at 
 
 Hampton ; but, , I can't hold lines long in my memory.' 
 
 They were short hymns, 1 and her difficulty was to frame a 
 verse and hold it in mind until she could get it on paper 
 either by her own hand or that of another. , . . 
 
 " She was unfeignedly interested in good work done by 
 other hands, and her manner in discussing it, that of the 
 fellow-laborer, not of the master-workman. I never de- 
 scried the faintest soupcon of such assumption, nor did I 
 ever detect any personal ambition in her great work. She 
 never sought notoriety. Not even in the seclusion of her 
 last years, when it would have been so natural for her to en- 
 tertain me with tlje exciting scenes of her previous history, 
 
 1 A favorite occupation of Miss Dix throughout life was the writ- 
 ing- of hymns. They were devout, heroic, pleading 1 , and submissive ; 
 but she possessed in no marked degree tho lyric faculty. 
 
THE LAST OF EARTH. 371 
 
 did she ever drag in her past enterprises and successes. 
 Present work seemed to fill her mind, not her former tri- 
 umphs. 
 
 " Of course her friendliness extended to my family. I 
 took my daughters to see her, and under the impulse of her 
 ruling passion she inquired what schemes of usefulness en- 
 tered into their young lives. One of them detailed to her 
 the effort she was making to benefit the children in her 
 church. On a subsequent visit, months afterward, she 
 asked how it went on. I pictured its progress with some 
 warmth, she listening sympathizingly and now and then 
 nodding approvingly, when she suddenly exclaimed, with a 
 
 beaming smile, * I know S would like to have her fingers 
 
 in my purse ; now would n't she ? ' I promptly declined any 
 gift, telling her she already had objects enough of her own 
 to prosecute ; but she would not be denied, and a crisp, new 
 note, so large that I protested against it, was sent with the 
 message, ' that of all the agencies of charity the school was 
 the most hopeful.' 
 
 "It is a mistake that age has power to cast out the evil 
 instincts of human nature. It often intensifies them. An- 
 ger and bitterness scowl along the twilight of many a bril- 
 liant career, as the dark clouds gather upon the evening 
 horizon of some exquisite day. With Miss Dix this was 
 not so ; her heated, excited day merged into a quiet, peace- 
 ful close. In the full tide of work she had been called 
 imperious and arbitrary. These traits may have been neces- 
 sary ; certainly, they were powerful aids in the accomplish- 
 ment of her splendid designs ; but as the night drew on, her 
 character mellowed, and all that was most lovable in her 
 nature appeared as her life slowly faded away. 
 
 " She suffered at times agonies of pain, and her ability at 
 self -entertainment lessened rapidly in the last year. She 
 had become extremely deaf, her sight also was much im- 
 paired, and in her increasing bodily feebleness I imagine 
 that her well-stored memory, from which she had drawn so 
 largely for her comfort and refreshment, now often deserted 
 
372 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 her. Kind friends sought to aid her failing senses by the 
 best helps that science could supply, but in vain. It was pit- 
 iful to have her say to me, * Try to put this tube in my ear 
 so as not to pain, and yet allow me to hear what you say.' 
 And of her eyes, too, she said in a sort of despairing attempt 
 at cheerfulness, ' I do not think it right to get such numbers 
 of spectacles that nobody else can use. and which do me no 
 good.' 
 
 " I saw her only a few months before her death, when she 
 had become so weak as to allow me to stay only half an 
 hour. Feeble as she was, however, with that singular 
 thoughtfulness for others which never left her, she endeav- 
 ored to entertain the daughter I had brought with me. As 
 the interview wore on it became evident to me that she 
 wished to say something confidential, and at her suggestion 
 I tried to manceuver the faithful nurse out of hearing. 
 
 '* Failing ignominiously, I said, ' Oh, never mind now ; tell 
 me when I come again.' ' Ah, yes, if I am here ; if I am 
 here.' * Oh,' I replied, quite too warmly I feared to meet her 
 wishes, for I thought death would be welcomed by her, 
 ' Oh, I hope you will be here for many a year to come.' She 
 started up with agitated eagerness and said, with wild ex- 
 citement, * My dear friend, if you hope that, pray for it : pray 
 that I may be here. I think even lying on my bed I can 
 still do something.' She fell back upon her pillow exhausted, 
 whilst I, moved and surprised beyond measure, sat down 
 that she might have time to recover her composure. I then 
 rose to go. She threw her arms round me, saying with un- 
 wonted tenderness, ' O darling,' and I had parted with my 
 old friend forever. S. C. P. MILLER. 
 
 " PRINCETON, N. J." 
 
 Constant touches throughout this narrative reveal in 
 Mrs. Miller the genuine observer. With the second 
 childhood of extreme old age and the diminishing 
 power of self-restraint, almost inevitably does vanity 
 prompt the veteran soldier, sailor, statesman or trav- 
 
THE LAST OF EARTH. 373 
 
 eler to give way to the temptation of rehearsing to 
 others the flattering story of the battles or sea-fights 
 he has fought or has won, the great debates or peril- 
 ous adventures in which he has borne a heroic part. 
 Of all this no trace is found in Miss Dix. To her 
 when a thing is done, it is done. The present absorbs 
 her while it yet offers any good to do. Aged, broken, 
 and full of suffering, still for all her religious faith, 
 for all her yearning after a higher spiritual realm be- 
 yond, she does not want to die. " I think even lying 
 on my bed, I can still do something." The last excla- 
 mation, too, " O darling," is the one that occurs over 
 and over again in the broken, fragmentary letters she 
 at this period writes to dear friends, proving what a 
 world of tenderness underlay that self-controlled, ad- 
 amantine character with which she had fronted the 
 world in her long warfare for the outcast and despised. 
 
 As long as strength lasted it remained the habit of 
 Miss Dix to sit during the declining hours of sunlight 
 at her window, feasting her eyes on the beauty of the 
 landscape and communing with Him, of whom all this 
 visible glory was to her the perpetual manifestation. 
 There below her stretched the park-like expanse of 
 the grounds of the asylum, and there, sitting under 
 the trees or wandering along the paths in the fullest 
 enjoyment of liberty possible to their sad condition, 
 were the poor children of affliction, whose former mis- 
 eries in chains and cages had first started in her the 
 vow of consecration never to the end to be broken. 
 
 Now, in contrast, could she look down on them min- 
 istered to by the uttermost that could be done by sci- 
 ence, humanity, religion, and the healing charms of 
 nature. And yet in the hours of reverie to which this 
 visible scene must inevitably have led on, how equally 
 
374 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 distinctly to imagination must there have often risen 
 before her mind's eye, in twenty different States 
 stretching over half a continent in America, from the 
 pines and maples of Newfoundland to the live oaks 
 and palmettos of Louisiana, as well as in Europe and 
 in far-away Japan, the repetition of the same blessed 
 picture. He whom she had so loved and followed, 
 the Son of Man who came not to be ministered unto 
 but to minister, how often in those sacred hours 
 must she have felt the fullness of his benediction, " I 
 was an hungered, and ye gave me meat ; I was thirsty, 
 and ye gave me drink ; I was a stranger, and ye took 
 me in ; naked, and ye clothed me ; I was sick,, and ye 
 visited me ; I was in prison, and ye came unto me." 
 
 The end came on the evening of July 17, 1887. 
 For a month she had been growing steadily weaker. 
 Still with her habitual fortitude, and that desire to 
 pass unobscured through the portal of death so char- 
 acteristic of believing natures, she had begged her 
 dear friend Dr. Ward to avoid the use of anodynes, 
 and to tell her distinctly when the last hour was at 
 hand. This was not to be. Although Dr. Ward had 
 given her his pledge that he would apprise her as 
 soon as he saw the end near by, it came as unex- 
 pectedly to him as to her. He was sitting at the tea- 
 table when the nurse suddenly ran down to report 
 that Miss Dix was sinking away. Rapidly mounting 
 the stairs, on opening the door, just as his eye fell on 
 her, she breathed a quiet sigh and all of earth was 
 over. 
 
 The burial took place in Mount Auburn Cemetery, 
 near Boston, Mass. Occurring when, in the height of 
 the summer heats, so many are away at the sea-shore 
 or in the mountains, a few friends only, among them 
 
THE LAST OF EARTH. 375 
 
 Dr. John W. Ward, Dr. Charles H. Nichols, and Mr. 
 Horace A. Lamb, stood by the grave. Communica- 
 ting to her English friends the intelligence of her last 
 illness and death, Dr. Nichols, who had been so long 
 and intimately associated with her throughout her 
 great career, closed with these words his letter to Dr. 
 D. Hack Tuke : 
 
 " Thus has died and been laid to rest in the most 
 quiet, unostentatious way the most useful and distin- 
 guished woman America has yet produced." 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 SUMMARY. 
 
 A CONDENSED summary of the incidents and spirit 
 of a career already so fully illustrated as that of Miss 
 Dix seems hardly called for. Her story is one that 
 tells itself as it goes along. Still, it may be well in 
 a few words to gather in hand the separate threads, 
 and weave them into a combined picture of the essen- 
 tial characteristics of her life and work. 
 
 The childhood of Miss Dix was, as has been seen, 
 bleak, humiliating, and painful ; more so, indeed, than 
 it has been deemed needful to record. By the age of 
 twelve, the prematurely thoughtful little girl clearly 
 foresaw that she would have to take into her own 
 hands the problem of her future destiny, as well as of 
 the destiny of her two child brothers. How bitter her 
 earliest experience was, is evident from the fact that 
 never to her dying day would she unlock her lips on 
 the subject to her most intimate friend. 
 
 At an age, then, when most children are carelessly 
 living in their little world of dolls, the proud and sen- 
 sitive child keenly felt that she would have to conquer 
 for herself and others a foothold in the world. At 
 once her inborn decision of character displayed itself. 
 She ran away from her mortifying and belittling 
 present that she might secure the possibility of a more 
 promising future. Independent she would be, and 
 master of the means of carrying out what was then 
 
SUMMARY 377 
 
 the strongest desire in the heart of the premature 
 child - mother. To fit herself to become a teacher 
 seemed the one way to achieve her purpose. It was 
 the New England ideal of honorable work ; it fell in 
 with her own thirst for knowledge ; and it opened up 
 a field for forcefully impressing herself on others, al- 
 ways so predominant a trait of her character. Thus 
 from the start were the intrepidity and rational clear- 
 ness of her mind revealed. 
 
 Underlying, however, this exceptional energy and 
 ambition, there lay a temperament of extreme sensitive- 
 ness, of a sensitiveness, indeed, so acute as physically to 
 betray itself all through her girlhood and young wom- 
 anhood in a quick flushing of the face whenever she was 
 addressed. All her views of life took on an idealistic 
 shape. She craved the society of refined, intellectual, 
 and morally superior people. She reveled in poetry, 
 she was a worshiper of intellectual greatness, she was 
 full of heart-break for affection, she drank in passion- 
 ately the religious prophecies of teachers like Chan- 
 ning. And yet her love of knowledge, beauty, and 
 spirituality were at the last remove from selfish ab- 
 sorption in the pursuit of them. Poverty, ignorance, 
 and degradation distressed her as keenly as their oppo- 
 sites allured her ; and the moment she could command 
 the means she began to gather together the children 
 of neglect and misery, to make them sharers in a 
 richer life. 
 
 Every ideal in her mind thus tended irresistibly to 
 practical benevolent action, the religious fervor of her 
 nature finding vent in enthusiastic personal love of 
 him who went about doing good, and who yearned 
 to make all life a perpetual feast of love and beauty 
 to which from the highways and hedges the outcast 
 
378 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. D1X. 
 
 should be invited in, the wedding garment thrown over 
 their rags and misery. 
 
 There is, then, no way of understanding the later 
 career of this outwardly so self-sustained and com- 
 manding woman, apart from the full recognition of 
 the intensity of an emotional temperament pouring out 
 the molten metal which shaped every lineament in the 
 gradually consolidating bronze statue. This tempera- 
 ment was at once the exaltation and the despair of her 
 youth, and the hidingplace of the power of her on- 
 coming days. What kept her sane through the terri- 
 ble strain of her later years was the relief she got in 
 the passionate love and study of nature, in her power 
 of swiftly kindling to ideal visions of what could and 
 should be made real, and in adoring communion with 
 God, through whose help she rested assured all things 
 were possible. Thus even in the extreme of physical 
 exhaustion, as after her memorable campaign iu Scot- 
 land, the inextinguishable fervor of her nature leaps 
 up into its old wonted flame, the moment she hears of 
 a new field of promise in the Island of Jersey. " I 
 shall see their chains off," she enthusiastically writes 
 in a letter already quoted in a previous chapter, " I 
 shall take them into the green fields, and show them 
 the lovely little flowers and the blue sky, and they 
 shall play with the lambs and listen to the song of the 
 birds, and ' a little child shall lead them ! ' This is 
 no romance, this all will be if I get to the Channel 
 Islands, with God's blessing." The romantic ideal, 
 " they shall play with the lambs," the splendid self- 
 confidence, " if / get there," the devout recognition, 
 " with God's blessing," here lay the three root mo- 
 tive-powers of the woman. 
 
 Throughout the school-keeping period of Miss Dix's 
 
SUMMARY. 379 
 
 life, the contradictory elements in her nature, intense 
 and even perilous sensibility held down and often 
 trampled under foot by rigid, ascetic will-power, were 
 never really harmonized. Sensibility to ideals dic- 
 tated for herself and for her pupils a height of con- 
 secration to knowledge, duty, and service beyond the 
 possibility of realization, while inflexible will insti- 
 tuted rules and practices which took no count of flesh 
 and blood, and were severe and monastic to an ex- 
 treme. Periods of exhaustion and irritability, with 
 subsequently the swift advance of threatening pul- 
 monary disease, were the penalty she herself paid ; 
 while, in the case of the children, some looked back 
 to their school experience with pain, and others de- 
 clared that they owed to it the best they had ever 
 been or done in life. With Miss Dix, it ended, as 
 has been seen, in the utter collapse of her physical 
 powers, her mind, however, proudly sustained by the 
 feeling that no sharpness of suffering had ever moved 
 her to flinch, that she had made a home for her 
 younger brothers and launched them on the world, 
 had achieved independence, and finally had set a 
 stamp on large numbers of young lives that would be 
 indelible for good as long as they should live. 
 
 Next follows the eighteen months of extreme illness 
 and languishing in Liverpool, England, the jubilee 
 year of her life as she always termed it, the period, 
 for all its pain and all its near prospect of death, in 
 which she felt she had been permitted the most luxu- 
 riously to surrender herself to leisure, beauty, domes- 
 tic love, and spiritual conmmunion with Heaven. It 
 wrought a marked softening and enriching influence 
 on her character. Still, it was destined to be fol- 
 lowed on her return to America by the saddest and 
 
380 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 most disenchanted period of her earthly experience. 
 Reaching home a feeble invalid, her career as a teacher 
 over, lonely and with no distinct prospect before her 
 for the future, she felt herself an exile in her own 
 land. 
 
 Now first came to her the unifying power which was 
 to fuse into one harmonious whole the contradictory 
 elements of her nature. Once she was brought into 
 contact with the abyss of human misery opened up in 
 the condition of the outcast insane in Massachusetts, 
 and, as she soon discovered, all over the Union, then 
 forthwith in the overpowering call of God to dedicate 
 herself to their championship* she became revealed to 
 herself and revealed to others. Had she stood and 
 simply gazed down into that abyss of woe, it would 
 have paralyzed so sensitive a nature. But high above 
 all the moaning and despair she heard the angel song 
 of the new gospel of glad tidings of great joy to them 
 that sat in darkness, revealed to the world through 
 the humane inspiration of such sons of consolation as 
 Pinel and Tuke. To the fervid apostleship of this, 
 to her, " new Jerusalem descending like a bride from 
 the heavens" would she consecrate her life. " Look 
 on this picture and on this," was henceforth the pole 
 star of her guidance. 
 
 Here, then, it at once became clear was a nature de- 
 manding a large field on which to deploy its forces, 
 forces which shut up to anything lesser must inevita- 
 bly have preyed on herself and preyed on others. 
 Now could she plan great enterprises. Now could 
 ' she measure her indomitable moral will against the 
 apathy and selfishness of whole legislatures, and finally 
 kindle in their hearts the enthusiasm of humanity. 
 Now could she command and dispose of enormous 
 
SUMMARY. :;,si 
 
 pecuniary resources, the outcome of public taxation. 
 Now could she cause in twenty States vast structures 
 to rise out of the ground, which should take into the 
 merciful keeping of their quiet, beauty, and skill those 
 heretofore chained, scourged, and pinched with cold. 
 Now could she create the national conditions of a 
 great school of insanity, and open a career to the em- 
 inent men who were destined to carry so far the name 
 and fame of her native land. No wonder she grew 
 happier. She was made for such happiness. No 
 wonder she grew healthier. The caged and drooping 
 eagle in her nature was now afloat on the great spaces 
 in which alone it could find vigor and joy. 
 
 Then forthwith was it seen how the very powers, 
 the excess of which had been faults in a more re- 
 stricted sphere, proved the exact means to her great 
 ends. The very persistency of will which exercised 
 on minor matters had often been trying to others now 
 took the leadership of the " forlorn hope," and be- 
 came the assurance of victory on victory, making 
 strong men like her friend Dr. Buttolph write her, " I 
 have learned from you never to despair." The very 
 self-confidence which, shut up to little things, might 
 easily have been characterized as assumption, now 
 inspired her to seemingly impossible feats of moral 
 daring, which became their own splendid justification. 
 The very asceticism which exerted in a round of triv- 
 ial duties had been injurious to mind and body 
 now became power to " endure hardness as a good 
 soldier of Christ," the spur to " scorn delights and 
 live laborious days." The very reticence which, in 
 social life, had proved a barrier to closer intimacy, and 
 often had defeated the craving for affection so in- 
 tense in her self-repressed nature now enabled her to 
 
382 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 hold her own counsel, and, while the repository of the 
 secret history of two thirds of the asylums in the land, 
 never in a single instance to betray confidence. Fi- 
 nally, that very yearning to relieve misery and that 
 passionate wrath over its longer existence, which left 
 to themselves would either have unnerved or have con- 
 sumed her, now became the reacting motive to plunge 
 into practical work, and achieve mastership over every 
 detail of hospital construction and hospital manage- 
 ment. 
 
 The marvelous series of campaigns of pure human- 
 ity won by this single-handed woman, and resulting in 
 the establishment of such a host of asylums has already 
 been sufficiently described. Imagination is feeble to 
 call up the extent and enduring character of this her 
 work. It is only by one who has journeyed over the 
 many States of the Union, and seen with the bodily 
 eye the enormous structures and park-like grounds she, 
 with the wand of her moral genius, made to start out of 
 the earth, that it can be adequately conceived. Then 
 first the beholder feels the force of the words written 
 her as far back as 1850 by President Fillmore : 
 
 " Accept my sincere thanks for the print of the Hospital 
 for the Insane in Tennessee. . . . When I looked upon its 
 turrets and recollected that this was the thirteenth monu- 
 ment you had caused to be erected of your philanthropy, I 
 could not help thinking that wealth and power never reared 
 such monuments to selfish pride as you have reared to the 
 love of mankind." 
 
 It will be recalled from previous chapters how fre- 
 quently the impression made by the absolute consecra- 
 tion of Miss Dix to her work had led many superin- 
 tendents and private benefactors of asylums all over 
 the land, to speak of her as "our Lady," "our Patron 
 
SUMMARY. 383 
 
 Saint," a strain of Medievalism certainly not very 
 common in practical, unimaginative America. Indeed, 
 in a memorial notice written after her death by Dr. 
 Daniel Hack Tuke, of England, the same idea recurs 
 when, in alluding to his own visit to America, he 
 says, " The writer has observed in at least one asylum 
 chapel the portrait of this saintly woman on the wall 
 where in a Roman Catholic Church the Virgin Mary 
 would have been placed." None can doubt that had 
 she lived in earlier ages of the world her works of 
 mercy would have led to her actual canonization, 
 and that, on the altar pieces of churches, her halo- 
 crowned figure, marked by some especial symbol, 
 would have become as familiar a sight as those of St. 
 Catherine of Siena, or Santa Barbara. Surely, the 
 poor dazed and broken minds of the demented could 
 invoke from a higher realm no more merciful or pre- 
 vailing spirit. 
 
 It is, however, an admirable custom in the Roman 
 Catholic Church that, whenever its prelates are sum- 
 moned to deliberate the momentous question of adding 
 to the sacred calendar a new name, one out of their 
 number should be appointed to enact the part of what 
 is termed the "Advocatus Diaboli," or Devil's Ad- 
 vocate. His duty it is to rake out of every hidden 
 quarter and every unguarded hour of life the worst 
 that can possibly be urged against the candidate for 
 canonization. A world-old idea this, one already im- 
 aginatively glorified as far back as in the days of 
 the Book of Job, where, before the court of God and 
 His angels, appears Satan, the Adversary, to challenge 
 the name of the man pronounced " perfect and upright, 
 and one that feared God, and eschewed evil." In the 
 light of the frailty of human nature, even at its best 
 
384 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 estate, the custom, let it be repeated, is an admirable 
 one, and one that falls in with every natural instinct 
 of justice ; only with the needful proviso that the pre- 
 ternatural acuteness of the Adversary for discovering 
 spots even on the face of the sun shall not be suffered 
 to outweigh the entire mass of counter testimony to 
 the fact that, after all is said, the sun remains a re- 
 splendent luminary. 
 
 The only serious faults that were ever urged against 
 the character of Miss Dix were that in minor matters 
 many people thought her too much inclined to take 
 the reins into her own hands, too inflexible and dic- 
 tatorial in her treatment of the judgment of others, 
 and that at times her self-consciousness was oppres- 
 sive. These were instinctive elements in her nature, 
 manifest from childhood : in reality without the strong 
 tap root in her being from which they sprang, she 
 could never have achieved her enormous work. They 
 are elements of character the praise or blame of which 
 turns wholly on what other qualities of mind are allied 
 with them. United with clear ideas and noble pur- 
 poses they lead on to grand results ; and it is only 
 when bound up with narrow thoughts and petty per- 
 sonal ends that they prove morally censurable. No 
 great character can keep always at its high-water 
 mark. There come times of exhaustion and disen- 
 chantment when the higher qualities of the intellect 
 and soul are in abeyance, and the automatic habit 
 of the underlying native temperament alone asserts 
 itself. 
 
 Emphatically, the automatic habit of Miss Dix's 
 nature was that of imperial command, the instinct of 
 taking into her own hands the decision of momentous 
 questions involving the welfare or misery of thou- 
 
SUMMARY. 385 
 
 sands, and of undauntedly insisting, no matter in the 
 face of whom, in the face of Legislature, Congress, 
 Parliament, or Pope, this way, in the name of the 
 Father of the Fatherless ! this way, and no otherwise, 
 shall it be. For it, thousands and tens of thousands 
 who elsewise would have continued to languish in mis- 
 ery had occasion to rise up and call her Blessed ! 
 That this great tidal set of a powerful nature should 
 at times in minor matters, and when no large idea 
 was longer present, have swept persistently on, was 
 a fault of character of which, when the most is made, 
 no serious detraction from her greatness remains. 
 The older superintendents of asylums, who recog- 
 nized the immense debt of obligation under which 
 they lay to her, smiled good-humoredly at such trifling 
 peculiarities, knowing full well what a stronghold jus- 
 tice and mercy ever maintained in her heart, and that it 
 was after all a " godly jealousy " for the sacred name of 
 the institutions she yearned over that made her so in- 
 sistent that no jot or tittle should pass from their law. 
 The faults, then, of the character of Miss Dix be- 
 longed to the class of what have been aptly named the 
 " faults of one's virtues," that is, they grew out of the 
 excess of good and great qualities. The phrase is a 
 most significant one. Not that a fault does not still 
 remain a fault, and a virtue a virtue. And yet it 
 would be but the barest justice to add that of all her 
 feats of dominating obstacles, the greatest feat of them 
 all was the success with which through long, long 
 years she dominated the extremes of her own sensitive, 
 fiery, and commanding spirit. Throughout her whole 
 asylum life, it was her struggle, and almost always suc- 
 cessful struggle, to hide the imperious element in her 
 nature under the cover of an unfailing patience, sweet- 
 
386 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 ness of persuasion, and utter sinking of self in the 
 cause of the poor outcasts for whom she was pleading. 
 "I perceive," wrote to her President Fillmore in 1850, 
 during her long struggle in Washington, " that you 
 feel anxious and sad. I cannot wonder at it ! I won- 
 der your patience has held out so long and that you 
 can speak with such equanimity. But yours is a good- 
 ness that never tires, a benevolence that never wearies, 
 a confident hope that never seems to desert you. None 
 but the most disinterested and self-sacrificing can have 
 such faith, or display such all-conquering perseverance." 
 Did then, persons at times accuse her of being inter- 
 fering and dictatorial in smaller matters ? Be it so ! 
 She had come heroically by the fault, even when it 
 was a fault. For by what had it been bred in her? 
 Simply by this, that all through her long and self- 
 sacrificing public career of over forty years it had 
 been the very burden of God laid on her shoulders, to 
 interfere now with brutal almshouse keepers, now 
 with a low and besotted state of public opinion, now 
 with selfish politicians, now with narrow partisan leg- 
 islatures, yes, and to persist in interfering till the voice 
 of justice and mercy prevailed. Surely such virtues 
 were resplendent enough to swallow up in their light 
 the few " faults of her virtues." 
 
 The prescribed limits of this biography forbid the 
 introduction here of the grateful and detailed tributes 
 paid after her death to the memory of Miss Dix, at the 
 annual convention of the Association of Superinten- 
 dents of American Insane Asylums, as well as embodied 
 in the yearly reports of the many and vast institutions 
 she had founded. With scarcely the faintest note of 
 dissent they were in one vein of praise and veneration. 
 It was for the "judgment of the competent " that she 
 
SUMMARY. 387 
 
 alone ever cared, and the seal of this was indelibly 
 stamped on her name and work. Had she taken 
 thought of mere personal fame and yielded to the con- 
 stant appeals of governors and State legislatures, her 
 name carved in stone would be read to-day over the 
 portals of more stately structures than were ever from 
 the foundation called after any private man or woman. 
 As it was, the Dix Ward of the McLean Asylum, 
 Somerville, Mass., and Dixmont Hospital, Perm., are 
 the only institutions, where, except for her portrait 
 hanging in so many of their chapels, there is anything 
 visible to suggest her name. 
 
 Very pleasant is it, however, to round off this sum- 
 mary of the more public characteristics of so salient a 
 character with the notice of a more private trait pe- 
 culiarly feminine in its nature, a straw, perhaps, 
 but still a straw which reveals the main set of the 
 current of a life dedicated to going about doing good. 
 
 Although herself an unmarried woman, who in 
 early life had met a blight of her affections after an 
 engagement with a cousin, Miss Dix retained till late 
 in her days a romantic fondness for bringing together 
 those she thought fitted to make loving helpmates to 
 one another, and then leaving it to the elective affini- 
 ties to complete the process of domestic attraction and 
 cohesion. In this eager disposition of the woman 
 who had never known the blessedness of a home of 
 her own to enact the part of special providence in se- 
 curing a happy home for others, her judgment again 
 and again proved as clear as her heart was warm. One 
 series of letters was there left among her papers from 
 a superintendent and his wife both long since dead, 
 and whom none now living can name that were one 
 continuous chant of benediction to the Lady Bountiful, 
 
388 LIFE OF DOROTHEA L. DIX. 
 
 who had so tenderly and delicately brought them to- 
 gether, and secured them nineteen years of unbroken 
 domestic love. 
 
 Innumerable likewise, as illustrating the purely 
 womanly side of Miss Dix's nature, were the letters 
 from sick rooms and homes of bereavement, containing 
 each some such endearing message as : "In this I place 
 a couple of Heart' s-ease blossoms from our garden. 
 They seem to me peculiarly your flower." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Adams, Lucy S., 227. 
 
 Advocatus Diaboli, the, his duties, 3S3. 
 
 Alexandria, Va., 51. 
 
 Andrew, Gov. John A., 332. 
 
 Autonelli, Cardinal, 288, 292. 
 
 " Arcadia," the wreck of the, 221. 
 
 " Arctic," the ill-fated steamship, 202. 
 
 Armstrong, Gen. 8. C., 368. 
 
 Ashley, Lord, 238. 
 
 Asylum, curious internal history of an, 
 
 312. 
 Audubon, the naturalist, 33. 
 
 Baltimore, asylum at, 70. 
 
 Bancroft, Mrs. J. P., 294. 
 
 Barnard, Rev. Charles, 17. 
 
 Bell, Hon. Hugh, letters from, 142, 143, 
 
 221. 
 Bell, Dr. L. V., letters from, 86,87,177, 
 
 191. 
 Bethlehem Hospital, treatment of insane 
 
 at, 60, 61. 
 
 Blagden, Thomas, 153, 154, 245. 
 Bohemia, the women of, 305. 
 Bremer, Frederika, letters from, 162, 
 
 H53, 164 ; her national pride, 163. 
 Brown, Hon. Albert G., speech by, 196, 
 
 Browning, Robert, 50. 
 
 Bryce, Dr. P., 106. 
 
 Burghardt, Dr. Caroline A., 341. 
 
 Burke, Edmund, 175. 
 
 Butler, Cyrus, 100, 245. 
 
 Butler, Dr. J. S., 94. 
 
 Butler, Gen. B. F., 333. 
 
 Butler Hospital, endowment of, 102. 
 
 Calvinism, system of, 55. 
 
 Cameron, Simon, Secretary of War, 336. 
 
 Channing, Dr. W. E., 15, 22, 36, 44, 85, 
 
 88. 
 Channel Islands, The, sad condition of 
 
 things in, 269; their relation to the 
 
 United Kingdom, 269. 
 Charleston, S. C., a burial at, 317. 
 Clark, Sir James A., 256. 
 Cleaveland, Dr. J. M., 310. 
 Collamore, Dexter, 227. 
 Collhis, E. K., his act of kindness, 203. 
 Commission Royal, report of, 252, 253, 
 
 254. 
 
 Conolly, Dr. John, 69, 308. 
 Constantinople, a good asylum at, 299. 
 Coxe, Dr. James, 251, 256. 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 201. 
 
 Couthon, the Jacobin, 63. 
 
 Darlington, William, 194. 
 
 Dix, Dr. Elijah, his birthplace, 4 ; his 
 practice as physician in Worcester, 4 ; 
 his deeds for promoting the welfare 
 of, 5 ; incident illustrating his hon- 
 esty, 5 ; an anecdote of, 6 ; his removal 
 to Boston, 6 ; his purchases in Maine, 
 6 ; the cliaracter of, 7. 
 
 Dix, Joseph, his character, 1 ; his ab- 
 normal tendencies, 2 ; the reason for 
 his living at Hampden, 7. 
 
 Dixmont Centre, the burial place of Dr. 
 Elijah Dix, 7. 
 
 Dixmont Hospital, 7. 
 
 Dix, Dorothea Lynde, her birth, 1 ; her 
 early days, 1 ; her trials, 2 ; reasons 
 for her going to Boston, 2, 3 ; charac- 
 ter of her parents, 3 ; memories of her 
 grandfather, 7 ; her home with her 
 grandmother, 7 ; effect upon her char- 
 acter, 8 ; the loss of her childhood, 11 ; 
 the indomitable purpose of her life, 
 12; her school at Orange Court, 14; 
 her duties at the Dix mansion, 15 ; 
 her school in the Dix stable, 16; her 
 character in those days, 18 ; extract of 
 a letter written at midnight, 19 ; her 
 loneliness and constant work, 21 ; her 
 health in 1824, 21 ; her self-reproaches, 
 22 ; friendship of Dr. William Ellery 
 Channing with, 22 ; her winter life in 
 Philadelphia and Alexandria, 24 ; the 
 effect of suffering upon her character, 
 25 ; a striking piece of self-portraiture, 
 26 ; her visit to the Island of St. Croix, 
 27 ; her enthusiasm for the study of 
 natural history, 28 ; bad effects of a 
 tropical climate upon, 29 ; her views 
 upon West India slavery, 30, 31, 32 ; 
 her efforts to improve the condition of 
 soldiers, 34; return from St. Croix, 
 35 ; her grand objects, 35 ; arrange- 
 ments of her school, 37 ; letters from 
 children to, 39-41 ; her health fails, 
 41 ; results of her work as a teacher, 
 41-43; sails for England, 44; her 
 one long holiday, 46; returns from 
 England, 51 ; her attention directed 
 to the condition of the insane, 59 ; 
 an imperative demand answered by, 
 
 72 ; her undertaking of a great career, 
 
 73 ; her labors at East Cambridge jail, 
 
 74 ; her first memorial to a State leg- 
 islature, 76-82; the success of her 
 
390 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 memorial, 83-85; her legislative vic- 
 tory, 90; wonderful qualities of her 
 voice, 91 ; a conviction forced upon 
 her, 93; her occupations in 1841- 
 1843, 94 ; her articles on astonishing 
 tenacity of life, 96-100; her second 
 victory, 102, 103; begins her larger 
 work, 104 ; labors in New Jersey, 105, 
 106 ; a marked secret of her success, 
 107 ; her method of dealing with State 
 legislatures, 109 ; her " first-born asy- 
 lum child," 110, 111; her severest 
 work, 114 ; her letter to Mrs. Hare, 
 114 ; type of legislator not dreaded by, 
 116 ; compliment not relished by, 118 ; 
 her letter to Miss Heath, 123 ; increas- 
 ing difficulties of her work, 124-126; 
 her wise economy of her strength, 
 127 ; incidents of her southern jour- 
 ney, 128, 129 ; her untiring work suc- 
 cessful, 137 ; tribute of honor to, 138 ; 
 her work in the British provinces, 141 ; 
 her triumph over apathy and igno- 
 rance, 144, 145; the names on her 
 "battleflag of .humanity," 145; the 
 secret of her power, 146-148 ; the 
 adoration of the Southern people for, 
 148 ; her avoidance of side issues, 148 ; 
 all local questions ignored by, 152 ; an- 
 other class of duties thrust upon, 155 ; 
 appointment made by her recommen- 
 dation, 156; the impression made upon 
 others by, 159 ; her meeting with 
 Frederika Bremer, 161 ; her project 
 for work abroad, 162 ; enters the na- 
 tional arena, 166 ; her first memorial 
 to Congress, 169 ; her personal labors 
 with the members, 176 ; her views of 
 the situation, 178 ; her temporary re- 
 pulse, 179 ; her second memorial to 
 Congress, 180 ; at her old place in the 
 library at the Capitol, 181 ; her second 
 defeat, 186 ; renews her national cam- 
 paign, 189 ; her first signal victory, 
 188 ; her victory changes to defeat, 
 191 ; her departure to Europe, 201 ; 
 her indefinite plans, 202; the ruling 
 passion of her life illustrated, 204 ; her 
 way of taking things easier, 205 ; her 
 tour in Ireland, 207 ; her visit to Sable 
 Island, 214 ; her efforts in the life- 
 saving service, 226-228; credit unre- 
 servedly given to, 239; her exciting 
 railway race, 244 ; her return to Scot- 
 land, 250 ; the fidelity of her revela- 
 tions fully indorsed, 25 ; suffers from 
 a severe inflammatory attack, 258; a 
 characteristic exclamation, 262 ; her 
 determination to visit the Channel Isl- 
 ands, 265 ; her course of action there, 
 268 ; signal proof of her well-balanced 
 mind, 273 ; the terms of honor be- 
 stowed upon, 276 ; her visit to Switz- 
 erland, 279; her intense enjoyment of 
 Alpine scenery, 280 ; she proposes to 
 face the linguistic problem, 281 ; her 
 description of the journey to Constan- 
 tinople, 282-285; her audience with 
 
 Pius IX., 289 ; her resemblance to 
 Catherine of Siena, 290; the return 
 from Italy, 295-297 ; the completion 
 of her continental investigations, 306 ; 
 her arrival in New York, 307; frequent 
 appeals to her judgment, 313 ; her 
 journey to Texas, 319 ; her dislike of 
 sleeping cars, 322; she answers the 
 call for volunteers, 335 ; the care and 
 responsibility thrust upon, 338 ; her 
 zeal leads sometimes to intemperate 
 action, 341 ; proposed reward to, 342 ; 
 her work at the close of the war, 344^ 
 her labor in behalf of a soldier's monu- 
 ment, 346-348; she returns to her 
 former work, 349 ; the infirmities of 
 "Increasing, 355; her last visit to 
 Trenton, 363 ; her last hours, 373-375 ; 
 summary of her life, 376-387. 
 
 Dodd, Hon. Joseph S., 110, 112, 118. 
 
 Drummond, H., 238. 
 
 Duncan, Alexander, 102. 
 
 Dyer, Major General, 347. 
 
 Earle, Dr. Pliny, remarks by, 68. 
 " Eleanora," loss of brig, 220. 
 Eliot, George, 291. 
 Eliot, Dr. W. G., 139, 367. 
 Ellsmere, Earl of, 209. 
 Ellice, E., 238, 239. 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 58. 
 
 Felton, Samuel M., 333-335. 
 
 Ferrer, Mr. and Mrs., 44. 
 
 Fillmore, President Millard, 382, 386. 
 
 Fitzwilliam, N. H., death of her mother 
 
 at, 48. 
 
 Folsom, Dr. Charles F., 355. 
 Forbes, Capt. R. B., correspondence 
 
 with, 25. 
 Fortress Monroe, soldiers' monument at. 
 
 346. 
 Fry, Elizabeth, a kindred spirit, 33. 
 
 Gardner, Dr. Sylvester, 5 . 
 
 Gannett, Rev. Ezra S., 86. 
 
 Georgia, treatment of the insane in, 170. 
 
 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 211. 
 | Gilman, Rev. Samuel, 317. 
 ! Godding, Dr. W. W., essay by, 71. 
 
 Graham, Sir James, 238. 
 ! Green, Dr. John, 4. 
 i Grey, Sir George, 237, 245. 
 
 Grissom, Dr. Eugene, communication 
 from, 108. 
 
 Gurney, Anna, letter from, 224. 
 
 Gurney, John J., 224, 236. 
 
 Hall, Mrs. Louisa J., a letter from, 158. 
 
 Hall, Rev. E. B., 101. 
 
 Hare, Mrs. Robert, letters to, 132, 134, 
 
 136, 172, 173, 319. 
 Hamlin, Dr. Cyrus, 300. 
 Harrisburg, campaign at, 121. 
 Hartford, asylum at, 71. 
 Harvard College, flags bequeathed to, 
 
 343. 
 Hazard, Mrs. H. S., a letter from, 48. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 391 
 
 Heath, Miss Annie, letters to, 17, 49, 52, 
 136, 138, 151, 185, 188, 189, 204, 230, 
 231, 2GC, 302, 314, 320, 330. 
 
 Hill, Dr. Gardner, 69. 
 
 Hilliard, George S., 149. 
 
 Hildebrand, Pope, 287. 
 
 Holmes, Dr. O. W., quotation from, 84. 
 
 Howe, Dr. S. G., 58, 74, 85, 89, 92, 119, 
 121. 
 
 Huger, Alfred, 350. 
 
 Insanity, old theory of, 57. 
 
 Insane, the, old treatment of, 57, 60, 61. 
 
 Japan, asylum in, 361. 
 Jelly, Dr. George F., 363. 
 Jordan, Captain William, 227. 
 
 Kane, Dr. Elisha Kent, 126. 
 Kent, Chancellor, 126. 
 Kerlin, Mrs. Harriet C., 358. 
 Kirkbride, Dr. Thomas S., 190, 193, 336. 
 
 Lamb, Horace A., 375. 
 
 Landon, Elizabeth, 19. 
 
 Le Marchant, Sir John Gaspard, 218. 
 
 Lesley, James, letters from, 15, 151. 
 
 Lynde, Dorothy, 8, 9, 11. 
 
 Lynde, Joseph, 8. 
 
 Mann, Horace, 59, 85, 87. 
 Martineau, Rev. Mr., 207. 
 Maryland, behavior of landholders in, 
 
 152. 
 Massachusetts, great awakening in, 36, 
 
 58. 
 McKenna, Captain M. D., letter from, 
 
 222; letter to, 226. 
 
 Merrill, Mrs. M. J. W., letter from, 41. 
 Middle Ages, superstitions of, 56. 
 Miller, Mrs. S. C. P., tributes from, 160, 
 
 369, 372. 
 Mississippi River, perils of travel on the, 
 
 138. 
 
 Montgomery, Alabama, 137. 
 Mori, Jugoi Arinori, a letter from, 361. 
 
 Naples, asylum at, 285. 
 
 Napoleon, his favorite sayings, 244. 
 
 New England, fifty years ago the state 
 
 of, 54, 55, 56, 57. 
 New Jersey, condition of jails in, 106 ; 
 
 Quakers of, 107 ; lunatic asylum in, 118. 
 New Orleans, 122. 
 New York city, asylum at, 70. 
 Nichols, Dr. Charles H., 128, 131, 375. 
 Nichols, Dr. John H., 153. 
 Nichols, Rev. J. T. G., letters from, 73, 
 
 74. 
 "North American Review," article in, 
 
 95. 
 
 Nova Scotia, 122. 
 Nova Scotia, the Bishop of, 141. 
 
 Oneida, N. Y., a New Year at, 316. 
 
 Palfrey, Rev. J. G., 85, 90. 
 Paris, asylums in, 62. 
 
 Parish, Dr. Joseph, 293. 
 
 Parker, Dr., 352. 
 
 "Patriot" newspaper, extract from, 131. 
 
 Paul, St., words of, 127, 274. 
 
 Philadelphia, asylum at, 70. 
 
 Pierce, President Franklin, his veto, 
 189 ; his reasons for vetoing the land 
 bill, 194 ; powerful rejoinders to, 194 ; 
 his political character, 199. 
 
 Pinel, Dr. Philippe, his methods, 62, 63, 
 68 ; memoir of, 64, 65, 66 ; revolution 
 effected by, 70. 
 
 Pittsburg, asylum at, 316. 
 
 Pius IX., Pope, his benignity, 289. 
 
 Politicians, Democratic, how frightened, 
 175. 
 
 Portsmouth, Rhode Island, 34. 
 
 Prague, Ladies' Club at, 305. 
 
 Public lands, origin and disposition of, 
 167, 168; the demand for lavish 
 grants of, 169 ; for benefit of the in- 
 sane, grants of, 189. 
 
 Railways, absence of, 125. 
 Raleigh, insane asylum at, 108. 
 Rathbone, William, 45, 132, 145, 271. 
 Rathbone, Mrs., letters to, 206,232,234, 
 
 250, 270, 297, 298, 299, 300. 
 Ray, Dr. Isaac, 159, 347. 
 Rivers, Western, racing on, 124. 
 Rome, miserable condition of the insane 
 
 in, 286. 
 Rutherford, Lord Advocate, 238, 254. 
 
 Sable Island, description of, 210-213. 
 Salem witchcraft, 56. 
 Sargent, Lucius Manlius, 88. 
 Schroder, Mr. and Mrs. Frank, 44. 
 Scotland, legislation regarding lunatics 
 
 in, 237. 
 
 Seymour, Sir George, letter to, 219. 
 Silliman, Professor Benjamin, 33, 110, 
 
 353. 
 
 Simmons, Abram, case of, 96, 97, 98. 
 Skae, Dr. David, 251. 
 Smith, Rev. Sydney, 61. 
 Solomon, a quotation from, 117. 
 Somerville, Massachusetts, asylum at, 
 
 South Carolina, its condition after the 
 
 war, 352. 
 
 Stanton, Edwin M., 341, 343, 347. 
 Stewart, Dr. R. S., 144. 
 Sumner, Charles, letter from, 75. 
 Swift, Dean, 139. 
 
 Theresa, St., a modern, 291. 
 
 Toronto, Canada, neglect and ignorance 
 at, 311. 
 
 Torrey, Mrs. Samuel, letters to, 28, 29. 
 30, 3L, 46, 47, 50, 246, 249, 320. 
 
 Trenton, asylum at, 104. 
 
 Tuke, Dr. D. Hack, 234 ; extracts from 
 his book, 235, 236, 237 ; letters from, 
 241,244. 
 
 Tuke, William, character of, 66, 68 ; ef- 
 forts made by, 67. 
 
 Turkey, condition of insane in, 284. 
 
392 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Valkyrias, function of tme, 165. 
 Van Leuven, Dr. D. H., 261, 264. 
 Venus of Milo, 141. 
 
 "Victoria," list of donors of the life- 
 boat, 218. 
 
 Victoria, Queen, orders issued by, 238. 
 Vienna, visit to, 304. 
 
 Walsh, Mrs. E. H., 275. 
 
 Ward, Dr. J. W., 105, 272, 315, 374. 
 Washington, Congress in, 43 ; residence 
 
 in, 51 ; hospital for insane at, 153 
 Webster, Daniel, 127. 
 Whittier, John G M 362, 367. 
 Williamsburg, Va., asylum at, 70. 
 Woodward, Dr., 94. 
 Wortley, Mr. Stuart, 238. 
 
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