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1 72 OF REVERIE. Sect. XIX. 3. 



After having thus returned for about an hour every day for 

 f.wo or three weeks, the reveries feemed to become lefs com- 

 plete, and fome of their circumflances varied j fo that (lie could 

 walk about the room in them without running againft any of 

 the furniture •, though thefe motions were at fir ft very unfteady 

 and tottering. And afterwards fhe once drank a difli of tea, when 

 the whole apparatus of the tea-table was fet before her; and 

 exprerTed fome fufpicion, that a medicine was put into it, and 

 once feemed to fmell of a tuberofe, which was in flower in her 

 chamber, and deliberated aloud about breaking it from the Item, 

 faying, " it would make her fifter fo charmingly angry." At 

 another time in her melancholy moments fhe heard the found of 

 a parting bell, " I wifh I was dead," (he cried, liftening to the 

 hd\, and then taking off one of her fhoes, as fhe fat upon the 

 bed, " I love the colour black," fays (lie, « a little wider, and a 

 little longer, even this might make me a coffin !" — Yet it is evi- 

 dent, ihe was not fenfible at this time, any more than formerly, 

 of ieeing or hearing any perfon about her ; indeed when great 

 light was thrown upon her by opening the fhutters of the win- 

 dow, her trains of ideas feemed lefs melancholy ; and when I 

 have forcibly held her hands, or covered her eyes, ihe appeared 

 to grow impatient, and would fay, fhe could not tell what to do, 

 for (he could neither fee nor move. In all thefe circumflances 

 her pulfc continued unaffected as in health. And when the par- 

 oxyfm was over, fhe could never recollect a fingle idea of what 

 had parTed in it. 



This aftonifhing difeafe, after the ufe of many other medi- 

 cines and applications in vain, was cured by very large dofes of 

 opium given about an hour before the expected returns of the 

 paroxyfms ; and after a few relapfes, at the intervals of three 

 or four months, entirely difappeared. But fhe continued at 

 times to have other fymptoms of epilepfy. 



3. We (hall only here confider, what happened during the 

 time of her reveries, as that is our prefent fubjecl: •, the fits of 

 convullion belong to another part of this treatife. Seel:. XXXIV. 



4 ** 



There feems to have been no fupenfionof volition during the 



fits of reverie, becaufe fhe endeavoured to regain the loft idea in 

 repeating the lines of poetry, and deliberated about breaking the 

 tuberofe, and fufpected the tea to have been medicated. 



The ideas and mufcular movements depending on fenfa- 



faiion were exerted with their ufual vivacity, and were kept 



■ -m being ineonhftent bv the power of volition, as appeared 



from her whole converfation, and was explained in Sect. XVII. 



3. 7. and XVIII. 16. 



