The autobiography of Elizabeth Squirrell of Shottisham, and selections from her writings : together with an examination and defence of her statements relative to her sufferings, blindness, deafness, entire abstinence from food and drink during twenty-five weeks, and other extraordinary phenomena: also facts and opinions illustrative and suggestive / by one of her watchers.

  • Squirrell, Elizabeth, 1838-
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The autobiography of Elizabeth Squirrell of Shottisham, and selections from her writings : together with an examination and defence of her statements relative to her sufferings, blindness, deafness, entire abstinence from food and drink during twenty-five weeks, and other extraordinary phenomena: also facts and opinions illustrative and suggestive / by one of her watchers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    freedom from suffering; these pieces, together with tlie following sketch, will exhibit in some measure her moral and intellectual character, as well as the peculiar tendencies of her mind. Her writings are almost of necessity fragmentary, her many infirmities preventing her from pursuing a subject at any great length; and they exhibit blemishes and imperfections which, I feel sure, she would have removed had she been able by means of sight properly to revise them; to some of these defects I should have called her attention, but from the fact of being unable to do so, except by the tedious process of the finger- alphabet, which would have required an amount of time that neither her weakness nor my engage- ments would allow. When, in addition to these considerations, I remind the reader that these are the productions of a child under fifteen years of age, with no other advantages of education than those of a village school—which advantages, on account of ilhmss, were enjoyed perhaps not more than two or three years—and that she had but little access to any society above that of her own station in life, I think an apology is presented on her behalf which will restrain a severe criticism. I will not here anticipate the consideration of a subject which belongs properly to another part of the work—except so far as to allude to it—namely, of her visions, and other extraordinary phenomena, the details of which, with the exception of the ringing of the glass, she has, in the present state of public feeling, very properly, I think, withheld. I will merely observe, in the words of a recent writer on similar subjects, that the fact of ‘these developments according