Diary Written in the Provincial Lunatic Asylum

Excerpt

December.—They will not allow me to go home, and I must write these things down for fear I forget. It will help to pass the time away. It is very hard to endure this prison life, and know that my sons think me insane when I am not.

How unkind Mrs. Mills is today; does she think this sort of treatment is for the good of our health? I begged for milk today, and she can't spare me any; she has not enough for all the old women, she says. I don't wish to deprive any one of that which they require, but have I not a right to all I require to feed me and make me well? All I do need is good nourishing food, and I know better than any one else can what I require to build me up and make me as I was before I met with this strange change of condition. I remember telling the Doctor, on his first visit to my room, that I only needed biscuit and milk and beef tea to make me well. He rose to his feet and said, "I know better than any other man." That was all I heard him say, and he walked out, leaving me without a word of sympathy, or a promise that I should have anything. I say to myself (as I always talk aloud to myself when not well), "You don't know any more than this old woman does." I take tea with Mrs. Mills; I don't like to look at those patients who look so wretched.

I can't bear to see myself in the glass, I am so wasted—so miserable. My poor boys, no wonder you look so sad, to see your mother looking so badly, and be compelled to leave her here alone among strangers who know nothing about her past life. They don't seem to have any respect for me. If I were the most miserable woman in the city of St. John, I would be entitled to better treatment at the hands of those who are paid by the Province to make us as comfortable as they can, by keeping us warmed and fed, as poor feeble invalids should be kept.

December 20.—I have made myself quite happy this week, thinking of what Christmas may bring to many childish hearts, and how I once tried to make my own dear boys happy at Christmas time. I helped poor Maggy to make artificial flowers for a wreath she herself had made of cedar. She was making it for some friend in the Asylum. She never goes out; she wishes to go sometimes, but Mrs. Mills scolds her a little, then she works on and says no more about it. Poor Maggy! there is nothing ailing her but a little too much temper. She does all the dining-room work—washes dishes and many other things.

January.—They have had a festival; it was made, I suppose, to benefit some one here; I don't know whom. It certainly did not benefit me any; no one invited me to go to the church where the festival was held, but Dr. Crookshank, the Assistant Physician, looked at me very kindly and said, "Do come, Mrs. Pengilly, you may as well come." I looked at my dress (it is grey flannel, and I have had no other to change since I came here), "I can't go looking like this; I must be a little better dressed to go into a public meeting of any kind; I am not accustomed to go looking like this, with nothing on my neck." He said, "Very well, something shall come to you;" and Mrs....