"Now this is exactly the symptom I have for nine months been struggling to
subdue, and as my wife knows, I am, week by week, balancing whether to put
myself under a doctor for it.... The spasm which distresses me comes at
the crisis when I ought to go to sleep, and so wakes me up. I could not
get rid of it even in the summer, on days on which I had least mental
effort, and was in all other respects conscious of great vigour....

"I went to a physician to complain of _sleeplessness_ and got the reply
that it was my _heart_ that was diseased.... Your sister's body is so
subject to her mind that I do not despair that, either through mesmerism
restoring sleep or in some other way, she may rally far beyond her present
expectation. I know a lady who was dying of brain fever, and could get no
sleep until the physician called in a mesmerist; this gained sleep for
her, and by that alone she recovered without medicine."


Dr. Martineau was one of the founders of the _National Review_ in 1855,
and frequently contributed articles to it. This next letter treats mainly
of the proposed lines on which the magazine was to be run--its politics,
points of view, etc.


_Dr. Martineau from Newman._

"_14th June_, 1855.

"My dear Martineau,

"I have seen with interest that your scheme of the National Review is