The heredity is also bad; the father is a man of
reckless and irregular conduct; the mother was at one time in a lunatic
asylum. The patient was brought up in an orphanage, and was a troublesome,
volatile child; she treated household occupations with contempt, but was
fond of study. Even at an early age her lively imagination attracted
attention, and the pleasure which she took in building castles in the air.
From the age of seven to ten she masturbated. At her first communion she
felt that Jesus would for ever be the one master of her heart. At
thirteen, after the death of her mother, she seemed to see her, and to
hear her say that she was watching over her child. Shortly afterward she
was overwhelmed by a new grief, the death of a teacher for whom she
cherished great affection on account of her pure character. On the
following day she seemed to see and hear this teacher, and would not leave
the house where the body lay. Tendencies to melancholy appeared. Saddened
by the funeral ceremonies, exhorted by nuns, fed on mystic revery, she
passed from the orphanage to a convent. She devoted herself solely to the
worship of Jesus; to be like Jesus, to be near Jesus, became her constant
pre-occupations. The Virgin's name was rarely seen in her writings, God's
name never. 'I wanted', she said, 'to love Jesus more than any of the nuns
I saw, and I even thought that he had a partiality for me.
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