The grant was not made, and she again appeared in Washington in 1850, renewing her application, but increasing the amount of land required to ten millions of acres. A favourable report was made; a bill was framed, passed the House, but was lost in the Senate for want of time.
But on her applications to many of the States, Miss Dix has been successful, and indeed she has a peculiar gift of winning success. The secret of her power is her earnest zeal, and her untiring industry. She acquires a thorough knowledge of her subject. She draws up her papers with unequalled skill. We have before us two of her Memorials—one presented at Harrisburg, the other at Washington. They are models for the study of whoever would prepare petitions to a public body of men. So clearly does she set forth the object, and arrange the arguments in favour of her plan, that the Committee to whom it is referred, adopt her Memorial as their own Report. The advantage this gives of success is wonderful. In framing her Memorials, she follows the manner commended by Sterne—takes single cases of suffering—paints pictures at which the heart is so moved that the understanding loses its power, and yields to the idea that no misery is so terrible as that of a raving maniac! He is a drunkard, perhaps, who has sacrificed his time, property, and health, to his sensual appetites. He has wilfully destroyed his own mind; yet he must be provided for at public expense—not merely with every necessary—but with comforts, luxuries; the means of instruction, and even amusements; while his broken-hearted wife, his beggared children are left to the hardest poverty, to struggle on as they may without sympathy or relief! Is it not a charity, as necessary as noble, to provide the means of support, instruction, and improvement, for that hungry, ragged, but sane group of innocent beings, who may be preserved from temptation, and thus made useful members of society; as it is to restore consciousness to a soul so embruted in sin, that it cannot, by human agency, be recovered from its fall?
But Miss Dix only sees the insane, and those who follow her reasonings, or rather descriptions, are almost if not altogether persuaded she is right. Then she is gentle in manners, and has a remarkable sweet voice; wonderful instances are told of its power, not only over the lunatic, but over the learned. She goes herself to the places where Legislators meet, and pleads with those who have the control of public matters. Thus she is engaged, in season and out of season, in one cause, to her the most important of all—and she succeeds. Her example is a remarkable proof of the power of disinterested zeal concentrated on one purpose.
DODANE,
Duchess de Septimanie, was the wife of Bernard, Duke de Septimanie, son of William of Aquitaine, whom she married, in the palace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in June, 824. She became the mother of two sons, William and Bernard, for whom she wrote, in 841, a book in Latin, called, "The Advice of a Mother to her Sons." Some fragments of this work still remain, and do honour to the good sense and religious feeling of the writer. Dodane died in 842.
DOETE DE TEOYES,
Was born in that city in 1220, and died in 1265. She accom-
