Among the savages of America and Australia, writing consists in a more or less rough kind of painting; e.g., to indicate, “would that I had the swiftness of a bird,” they depict a man with wings instead of arms.[322] These characters are not so much writing as aids to memory still further connected together and vivified by traditional songs or stories.
Some tribes, however, have attained to a somewhat less imperfect mode, which resembles our rebus; for instance, the Maya of America, to signify a physician, painted a man with a herb in his hand and wings to his feet; an evident allusion to the rapidity with which he is obliged to hasten to those who require him. Rain is represented by a bucket.[323]
The ancient Chinese represented malice by means of three women, light by the sun and moon, and the verb to listen by an ear between two doors.
This primitive writing shows us that the rhetorical tropes and figures of which our pedants are so proud, are expressions of poverty rather than wealth on the part of the intellect. In fact, they are frequently found in the speech of idiots and of educated deaf-mutes.
After having used this system for a considerable time, some more civilised races, such as the Chinese and Mexicans, took another step forward. They classified the more or less picturesque figures referred to above, and succeeded in forming ingenious combinations which, without directly representing the idea, indirectly suggested a reminiscence of it, as in our charades. Besides this, to prevent any uncertainty on the reader’s part, they placed either before or after these signs a sketch of the object to be expressed—a scanty remnant of the actual picture-writing of a previous age. This certainly took place at a time when—the language once being fixed—it was observed how some people, in writing down a given sign, recalled the sound of the words which it suggested. Thus Itzicoatl, the name of a Mexican king, was written by drawing a serpent (Coatl, in Mexican) and a lance (Itzli); thus, too, in Chinese, the character tschen represents boat, lance, and table.[324]
Our megalomaniac, by reviving this custom, affords one more proof that, in the visible manifestation of their thoughts, the insane frequently revert (as also do criminals) to the prehistoric stage of civilization. In the present case, it is quite easy to understand by what mental process G—— came to use this mode of writing. Under the megalomaniac delusion, believing himself lord of the elements, superior to all known or imaginable forces, he could not make himself properly understood with the common words of ignorant and incredulous men; neither could ordinary writing suffice to express ideas so new and marvellous. The lion’s claws, the eagle’s beak, the serpent’s tongue, the lightning-flash, the sun’s rays, the arms of the savage, were much worthier of him, and more calculated to inspire men with fear and respect for his person.
Nor is this an isolated case. One quite analogous to it is described by Raggi in his excellent study of the writings of the insane. Prof. Morselli has furnished me with another and still more interesting instance.
“The patient A. T——” he writes, “was a joiner and cabinet-maker; he had a certain skill in wood-carving, and his furniture was much sought after.[325] About seven years ago he was attacked with mental disease, apparently melancholia, and tried to commit suicide by throwing himself from the roof of the town hall. He is now subject to attacks of excitement with systematized delusions. His predominant ideas are political—republican and anarchist—on a certain groundwork of ambition. He fancies himself changed into some great criminal; sometimes he is Gasperone, sometimes Il Passatore, at others Passanante. He is always drawing or carving, and his work generally takes the form of trophies or allegorical figures.
“The most curious of all these is a piece of carving which represents a man dressed as a soldier, provided with wings, and standing on an inlaid pedestal covered with allegorical inscriptions. This figure has a trophy on its head, and other objects are carved on or around it, each of which expresses emblematically some one of T——’s delusions. For instance, the wings recall the fact that, when his first attack came on, he was in the square at Porto Recanati, selling his carvings, among which were several figures of angels, at a soldo a-piece. The ‘Medal of the order of the Pig’ is a token of contempt, wherewith he would like to decorate all the rich and powerful of the earth. The helmet, with a lantern hanging to the vizor (a reminiscence of Offenbach’s Brigands), symbolises the gendarmes who escorted him to the asylum. The cigar placed crosswise (note the position) represents his disdain for kings and tyrants; and the position of the leg recalls a fracture of that limb sustained by him in his attempt at suicide.
“The inscriptions on the pedestal are scraps of verse or extracts from newspapers which T—— is always quoting, and to which he attaches some mysterious significance. They always, however, refer to the state of slavery to which he is reduced (i.e., his detention in the asylum), and the vengeance he will one day wreak on his captors.