When the lunatics are brought in, or (as was more usual in real life though unsuited for dramatic representation), we visit them in their “cages” or cells, we are confronted with a strange sight. A “pretty poet” who “ran mad for a chambermaid” invokes Titania and Oberon,
and speaks in the sanest of tones of “daisies, primrose, violets”; his madness, though at the time we do not know it, is feigned. The Englishman is still crying for drink. Everyone must go down on his knees and pledge him: “A thousand pots, and froth ’em, froth ’em!” The parson, “that run mad for tithe goslings,” threatens to excommunicate and curse the whole company. A musician walks slowly and deliberately apart; he fell mad “for love of an Italian dwarf.” Many a lunatic resembles Candido, “much gone indeed,” who believes himself to be a prentice, “talks to himself,” selling “pure calicos, fine hollands, choice cambrics, neat lawns,” and resenting interference in a way which is positively dangerous. Near him is a lad brought in (like Alinda) “a little craz’d, distracted” and not suffering acutely; he is allowed comparative freedom and accorded light treatment till more dangerous symptoms shew themselves. He
“talks little idly
And therefore has the freedom of the house.”
We speak to the keepers about their charges, and they seem mildly interested. The most entertaining characters we may discuss at length with them; and, if we will brave their foul talk, we may even converse with the patients as freely as they are permitted to converse with each other. We must be prepared, in this case,
to hear frank comments on our personal appearance and the wildest of guesses, often mere expressions of an idée fixe on our profession or our business. The lunatics will not, of course, allow that they are mad, though they may recognise that they are ill and under a doctor’s care. This, however, is less common with our asylum patients than with those undergoing private treatment, such as Ford’s Meleander. The mere suggestion that they may be of unsound mind usually amuses them, or makes them indignant. It is only when the keeper ceases to reproach them with madness and turns the conversation to “Whips!” that they become serious again. Perhaps, after all, a talk with the keeper will best serve our purpose.
Friar Anselmo is at hand and will describe to us with more sympathy than many of his kind the condition of the inmates:
“There are of madmen, as there are of tame,
All humoured not alike. We have here some
So apish and fantastic, play with a feather;