"
After the fatal deed, Mary Lamb was deeply afflicted. Her act was in the
first instance totally unknown to her. Afterwards, when her consciousness
returned and she was informed of it, she suffered great grief. And
subsequently, when she became "calm and serene," and saw the misfortune in
a clearer light, this was "far, very far from an indecent or forgetful
serenity," as her brother says. She had no defiant air, no affectation,
nor too extravagant a display of sorrow. She saw her act, as she saw all
other things, by the light of her own clear and gentle good sense. She was
sad; but the deed was past recall, and at the time of its commission had
been utterly beyond either her control or knowledge.
After the inquest, Mary Lamb was placed in a lunatic asylum, where, after
a short time, she recovered her serenity. A rapid recovery after violent
madness is not an unusual mark of the disease; it being in cases of quiet,
inveterate insanity, that the return to sound mind (if it ever recur) is
more gradual and slow. The recovery, however, was only temporary in her
case. She was throughout her life subject to frequent recurrences of the
same disease. At one time her brother Charles writes, "Poor Mary's
disorder so frequently recurring has made us a sort of marked people.
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