Thursday, June 04, 2015

It becomes our disagreeable to RETRACT our proposed encomium for Frederick B. Arner. He has it all there! All the indicia of personality disorder or mental illness is right there in front of him and Mr. Arner does not treat of the subject. Oh! the humanity.

On the Big One:

Toward the end of the summer of 1851 Humphreys became more and more intense and obsessive...

Humphreys "stopped writing to his wife because it distracted him...

He tongue-lashed his assistants for speaking with outsiders..."*

His superior officer, Lt. Col. Stephen Long, wrote in a letter, "With poor Humphreys, mental labor produces agitation,





bordering on distraction." Humphreys finally collapsed and was confined to bed in Philadelphia...His recovery took years...
That is all Mr. Arner writes. No, no this is disqualifying.

*quoting John M. Barry, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Floor of 1927 and How It Changed America.