"the long course of privation and terror to which we have been subjected"

"Having barely escaped this danger, our attention was now directed to the dreadful imminency of another; that of absolute starvation.  Our whole stock of provision had been swept overboard in spite of all our care in securing it; and seeing no longer the remotest possibility of obtaining more, we gave way both of us to despair, weeping aloud like children, and neither of us attempting to offer consolation to the other.  Such weakness can scarcely be conceived, and to those who have never been similarly situated will, no doubt, appear unnatural; but it must be remembered that our intellects were so entirely disordered by the long course of privation and terror to which we have been subjected, that we could not justly be considered, at that period, in the light of rational beings.  In subsequent perils, nearly as great, if not greater, I bore up with fortitude against all the evils of my situation and Peters, it will be seen, evinced a stoical philosophy nearly as incredible as his present childlike supineness and imbecility -- the mental condition made the difference."

-- Edgar Allen Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Godron Pym of Nantucket