“I find a monotony in madness. So many have inspirations, see phantoms, are the victims of vast conspiracies (principalities and powers combined against a fly); their food is poisoned, their wine is drugged, etc., etc.
“These, I think, are all forms of that morbid egotism which is at the bottom of insanity. So is their antipathy for each other. They keep apart, because a madman is all self, and his talk is all self; thus egotisms, clash, and an antipathy arises; yet it is not, I think, pure antipathy, though so regarded, but a mere form of their boundless egotism.
“If, in visiting an asylum, you see two or three different patients buttonhole a fourth and pour their grievances into a listening ear, you may safely suspect No. 4 of—sanity.
“On the whole, I think the doctor himself, and one of his attendants, and Jones, a keeper, have more solid eccentricity and variety about them than most of the patients.”
Extract from Letter 2, written about a fortnight later:
“Some insane persons have a way of couching their nonsense in language that sounds rational, and has a false air of logical connection. Their periods seem stolen from sensible books, and forcibly fitted to incongruous bosh. By this means the ear is confused, and a slow hearer might fancy he was listening to sense.
“I have secured you one example of this. You must know that, in the evening, I sometimes collect a few together, and try to get them to tell their stories. Little comes of it in general but interruptions. But, one night, a melancholy Bagman responded in good set terms, and all in a moment; one would have thought I had put a torch to a barrel of powder, he went off so quickly, in this style:
“'You ask my story: it is briefly told. Initiated in commerce from my earliest years, and traveled in the cotton trade. As representative of a large house in Manchester, I visited the United States.
“'Unfortunately for me, that country was then the chosen abode of spirits; the very air was thick and humming with supernaturalia. Ere long spirit-voices whispered in my ear, and suggested pious aspirations at first. That was a blind, no doubt; for very soon they went on to insinuate things profane and indelicate, and urged me to deliver them in mixed companies; I forbore with difficulty, restrained by the early lessons of a pious mother, and a disinclination to be kicked downstairs, or flung out o' window.
“'I consulted a friend, a native of the country; he said, in its beautiful Doric, “Old oss, I reckon you'd better change the air.” I grasped his hand, muttered a blessing, and sailed for England.