new word alert! – DeSpair]<\/em>.\u00a0 In the left-hand portrait is represented another patient, of a respectable station in life, but also ruined by drink; but by drink so gradually indulged in, however, that her altered state bewilders her, and fills her, fallen as she is, with distressful remorse.<\/p>\nAlthough we perceive even in this portrait the somewhat bloated or swollen condition of the fleshy parts of the face which tipsy habits produce, much expression remains – but it is of wretchedness and despair. The raised hands, pressed together, indicate the intensity of her prominent emotions; the eyes somewhat uplifted, but gazing on nothing ; the deep corrugation of the overhanging integuments of the lower forehead, portray the painful questioning of a woman not forgetful of her former life, nor unconscious of the comfortless change that has come over her; and the expression is heightened by those undefinable modifications of the muscular structure of the cheeks which add so much to all facial expression of intense character.\u00a0 In the upraised under lip, also, and in the tensely-elevated chin, there is so much meaning of the same kind, that we might almost fancy the poor patient breaking out, in this suffering mood, into expressive words, as was indeed the poor woman’s custom often, relative to her earlier life now gone, and happier thoughts long dispersed, and to remembrances of having once been esteemed and even admired in the modest circle in which she moved, until taught to like gin by “wicked neighbours” older than herself. Her history was indeed lamentable. She had been well educated, and resided, when a young woman, with her mother, who possessed a little independent property. Being then good looking, she was much noticed; nor did it appear that she lost her station by any immorality of early life. But she was not watched enough to guard her from pernicious acquaintances, who enjoyed, it would seem, the perverse satisfaction of teaching her the poor pleasures arising from the taste of spirituous liquors, until she adopted Mrs. Gamp’s plan of putting gin into the teapot. Somehow, as always happens in such cases, the little property possessed by her mother gradually diminished, and at length disappeared altogether. Dram-drinking became the only remaining comfort of the impoverished house; and thus things went on until one article of furniture after another, and also the clothes of her mother and herself, passed into the hands of the pawnbrokers. The poor mother found shelter in the workhouse, and the still more unhappy daughter, torn by remorse, and maddened more and more by intemperance now grown habitual, became maniacal, and was received into the lunatic asylum. Much of this, perhaps all of it, is written in that despairing, questioning face. Memory of past and purer time has not been destroyed by her malady, nor conscious obliterated. She feels herself transformed, and that for her no early joy remains or will return. Her irritable hands have traced marks of agony on her forehead; her neglected curls hang raggedly over her ears; she has torn them away until she is nearly bald. Even her large and well-developed brain seems to impress the beholder with thoughts aggravative of the miserable desolation that now alone prevails in the depths of her consciousness and memory. There is no healthful action and no comfort in any corner of that restless brain. Where once there was quick perception, imagination, benevolence, understanding, there is now but a tumultuous succession of ineffaceable records, read by the light of madness only, with no ray of better light from the retrospection, and as yet no higher hope. Suicide, the last resource of such wretchedness, has been often attempted by her. When all this affliction falls upon an erring human being, the comforts and even the blessings accorded to our poorer lunatics show all the value of the noble institutions where the most rejected of the world meet with pity and find rest. The malady may be too deeply fixed to be curable; but all physical excess is at an end – no neglect and no cruelty add to the morbid wretchedness; kind words are heard, and religious thoughts are gradually introduced into the mind of the sufferers; and the curtain of death falls gently even upon them.<\/p>\n
A different history from the preceding is plainly enough written in the second portrait, which exhibits traits scarcely quite unknown to persons accustomed to the observation of the faces of populous towns. Here the bloated face, the pendulous masses of cheek, the large lips uncontrolled by any voluntary expression, and two which refinement and delicacy seem never to have belonged; the heavily gazing eyes, not speculative, scarcely conscious; the disordered, uncombed, capriciously cut hair, cut with ancient scissors or chopped with impatient knife; the indolent position of the body, and the heavy resting of the coarse, unemployed, outstretched fingers, together with the neglected dress and reckless\u00a0abandon<\/em>\u00a0of the patient, all concur to declare the woman of low and degraded life, into whose mind, even before madness supervened, no thoughts except gross thoughts were wont to enter; and whose bold eye and prominent mouth were never, even from early infancy, employed to express any of the higher or softer sensibilities of a woman’s soul. But yet she is, even in this degraded state, more truly an object of pity than of condemnation. It is easy to condemn;\u00a0\u2014 it is harder to be just. [It takes strength to be gentle and kind – DeSpair<\/em>]\u00a0 Where this now outcast human being was born, and how brought up, it were vain to inquire. She probably never had a home; and it appears, in fact, that her earliest reminiscences were only of gaining a kind of livelihood by selling miscellaneous articles in the streets; articles begged, or articles lent, or articles stolen, no doubt. As she grew up, gross appetites grew up also; the love of beer, among the rest, developed itself strongly; and she was well known to her familiars as what even they denominated a low-lived person. But beer was sometimes hard to procure; it could not always be successfully begged for; it could not be easily stolen; and it could not be bought without money. So the want of this stimulant joy of low life caused her to cultivate her faculties as a singer, and these were exerted in low public-houses, where the remuneration was generally beer, or halfpence convertible into beer. Her audiences were not fastidious; her songs were not always unobjectionable; and she further became liable to infirmities of temper, and acquired habits of inconvenient violence; became signalised for artful frauds and cunning concealments, and in all respects negligent in her habits. At last she was pronounced to be insane, and found refuge, the only refuge in this world, from worldly misery, in an asylum; but she could scarcely appreciate even the comforts of an asylum. The beds and the clothing might be good, and the food; but the limitation of beer constituted a permanent grievance.<\/p>\n[Sheesh, I wonder what this guy would say about a photo of me???? – DeSpair<\/em>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today’s Tasty Yet Truly Morbid Fact! Omaima Aree was born in Egypt in 1969, not a great year to be living in the Middle East as Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian state engaged in bloody warfare with Israel. There is not much information about Aree’s life before she immigrated to America at eighteen, and what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7698"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10041,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7698\/revisions\/10041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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