great God who made me would not hold me much longer on earth, that
He would soon grant me the rest and peace which I believed was to be
found only in death and the grave. But _remember this_: In those dark
days never for a moment did I think of taking my own life! These words
may reach some one who has had such a thought. If so, I say to you that
to take one's life is the most cowardly thing a human being can do. This
is the only place where I feel like being severe with you people. Shame
on the man or woman who will not go on to the end fighting honorably!
And now if you have ever given thought to such a thing, blot it from
your mind forever. I can see how these miserable people might long for
death, as I did. But no matter how we may long for release through
death, the God of nature must be the judge of our time of going.

Now this brings me to what I want to say about such sufferers going
insane. Believe me, they never do! Remember this always. You won't
become insane. You couldn't if you tried! In letter after letter among
the flood of them I have had from all over this country and Canada, I
read how the poor sufferer feared he or she might be going insane. I
know, poor souls, just how you feel. That feeling is, I think, the most
dreadful of all things connected with "nerves." I suffered from it for
years. It is a dreadful feeling, but there is not the least bit of
danger of such a thing happening to you. You will _not_ go insane. Such
persons can't. Do you really get me? Such persons cannot go insane. This
disease is nothing but what we call a functional nervous trouble. And so
forget about the danger of insanity for all time. You can be cured, but
you will make your return to health just that much slower by harboring
this fear. And it would be simply foolish for you to go on thinking it
possible after I--let me say it again--after I have told you that it
cannot happen. For the value of this treatise lies in the "I." Its value
is just like that of the treatise by Cornaro. He lived it. And so
likewise have I lived it. I have been laid low with this malady. I have
staggered in black despair with staring eyes and bleeding feet and
crying soul along this road strewn with thorns and stones. I know what
it is to lie awake all night and cry like a baby, with none to know and
none to tell me what to do. I know what it is to be tremendously
ambitious. Ambition! Ambition! Ah, God of Heaven! How a poor soul
suffers who beyond