[Gutenberg 48455] • Ten Years and Ten Months in Lunatic Asylums in Different States

'I have been prompted by my friends and urged by a sense of duty to write the history of the Ten Years I spent in *Lunatic Asylums* , and give it to the public. This I proposed to do as soon as I came out, but I dreaded to expose my family to the scorn and reproach that would be cast upon them by my telling the *whole truth* , and when I did conclude to give it to the public, my feeble health prevented me, for a long time, from doing any thing.

I commenced during the last summer to write a full account of *all* the *terrible acts* that I experienced, saw and heard during those eventful years of sorrow and affliction, hoping that at some future day I might be able to give it to the public...'