On the Causes of Frequent Suicide: A Psychological Treatise

the confession of a fault his honor is violated and lost has taken hold of him too vividly for him to be able to suppress it; he takes refuge in the extreme, that he annihilates his entire existence. We find this in the person who burns with passionate love for his beloved, from whom alone he expects joy and well-being for himself. No earthly happiness exceeds the possession of her who has become his own through kinship of the heart; and death's iron hand severs the lovely bond. He cannot find his way into the pain; he succumbs to the numbing melancholy that robs him of health and life.

The same outcome, as with overwrought passion, is not infrequently taken by