Two Years and Four Months in a Lunatic Asylum / from August 20th, 1863 to December 20th, 1865

From August 20th, 1863, To December 20th, 1865.
By Rev. H. CHASE.
SARATOGA SPRINGS: 1868.
VAN BENTHUYSEN & SONS' STEAM PRINTING HOUSE.

I have been urged ever since I left the Asylum, by friends, to write my history of those two unfortunate years, and give it to the public. This I did purpose to do while I was in the asylum, as soon as I left it, while all things would be fresh in my memory. But after leaving that place, and mingling again with the world and with my friends, the very thought of the subject sickened me, for I desired to think and talk as little about the matter as possible.
Besides this, in eighteen months after I left the asylum I entered upon the regular work of the ministry again, and did not wish, while in the effective work of the ministry, to mix with it the history of those two unhappy years, of which I knew, the public had no adequate conception; and which, if I should write out faithfully, would develop facts which many would disbelieve, while others would only laugh at them, as freaks of my insanity, and not as sober truths.

Another reason which has deterred me from giving to the world the history of those two years, is the fact, that a number of inmates of lunatic Asylums in this country have given to the public their views of asylum life, and one especially, who was in the asylum at Utica, and discharged just before I entered it. I could not help noticing the effect these productions produced on society. In many instances the history was read only to laugh, and pity the insanity of the writer. This case referred to, was a lady from Syracuse.
The object she had in view in writing her narrative was evidently lost, excepting the profit she expected to derive from the sale of the work, which I judge could not have been great. She was very unfortunate in writing this narrative; marks of insanity stand out prominently through all the work in the language she uses, in the low scurrilous manner in which she attacks all who differ from her in opinion, her bitterness to the Church, and its ministers, and especially her low ribaldry concerning the doctors of the institution.