![]() It had not been the first time he had contemplated suicide, only to be held back by forces greater than himself. That man was William Cowper, the famous English poet. For reasons he could not conceive, the life that brought such despair and misery could not be ended… The rope snapped, and his housekeeper rushed in, responding to the noise. ![]() Each time, it was as if an invisible hand were pushing it away. But he couldn’t raise the bottle to his lips. Returning home, the desperate man decided to poison himself with an overdose of laudanum, a potent drug derived from opium. ![]() Moreover, despite the rainfall, the tides were low-too low to drown a man. When he reached the quays, he noticed a strange man sitting there, staring at him, as if on guard. He stepped down from the coach and walked through the fog toward the river’s edge. ![]() Only when he cast himself into the roiling Thames and drowned, he thought, would his agonizing trials finally end. He hired a coach to take him to the river. Late one stormy London night in 1763, a broken man was determined to end his life. In our inaugural issue of Mysterious Ways, contributing editor Rosie Schaap told the story behind these well-known words: ![]()
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