You may imagine my painful astonishment. “Poor thing!” said my guide, “she was seduced by some foreign prince, and every foreigner she sees she fancies is one. Sometimes she cries the whole day long, and will let nobody go near her: after that she is quite sensible again for weeks. She was very pretty once, but fretting has spoiled all her beauty.”
I was greatly struck by a young man, evidently of respectable station and education, who was possessed by one fixed idea,—that he was a Stuart, and had therefore a lawful claim to the throne. I conversed with him for half an hour without being able to get him upon this subject. He always broke off cautiously, nay cunningly, and talked in a very interesting manner of other things, particularly of America, where he had travelled for a considerable time; nor did he exhibit the slightest trace of insanity. Speaking of Walter Scott’s novels, I several times mentioned the Pretender, which I thought would excite him to speak; and at length said in a confidential tone, “I know you are a Stuart yourself.” This seemed to alarm him; and laying his finger on his lips, he whispered, “We must not speak of that here; the triumph of justice can be brought about by time alone, but the light will soon shine forth.” “I am going into Wales,” replied I, (he is a native of the Principality,) “will you give me your father’s address, that I may carry him your greetings?” “With the greatest pleasure,” said he; “give me your pocket-book, and I will write it.” I gave it him, and he wrote his real name, —— ——; then pointing to it with a smile, he added, “That’s the name under which my father passes there.—Adieu!” and with a gracious motion of the hand he left me.
What a dreadful spectacle! One single inveterate idea converts the most agreeable man into an incurable lunatic, costs him his freedom, and condemns him to the society of vulgar madness for life. What is unhappy man in conflict with physical evil,—and where, then, is the freedom of his will?
There was a foreign patient, whose conceits were more ridiculous,—if those of madness can ever be so;—a German pedant and writer of tours, who joined me in looking about the house, of which he was a constant inmate. He was incessantly taking notes. He addressed each of the patients at great length, and carefully committed their answers to paper, though they were often any thing but complimentary to him. Scarcely had he observed my conversation with the young man I have mentioned, when he came up to me, and besought me pressingly to let him see what that gentleman had written in my pocket-book. I told him. “Oh excellent—singular,” said he, “perhaps a real Stuart! I must inquire into it immediately,—a secret of state perhaps,—who knows? Very remarkable. Ich empfehle mich unterthänigst.” So saying, he strutted away, with an awkward, silly air, yet perfectly satisfied with himself.
On my way home I met a number of funerals, which indeed in a gulf like London, where Death must be ever at work, is no wonder; and yet I must always regard it as a bad omen, even though the superstition that deems it so belong rather to Bedlam than to a reasonable head.—With me it has some foundation.
When I was very young I was once driving in a curricle through the town of J—— where I then resided. A long funeral procession met me: I was forced to stop; and as my horses were shy and restive, I had some difficulty in holding them in, and at length became infected with their impatience. I broke through the train, and inconsiderately exclaimed, “The D—l take all this absurd funeral pomp; I can’t be detained by it any longer.” I drove on; and had scarcely gone fifty paces further, when a little boy darted out of a shop door, and ran with such rapidity between the horses and the carriage that it was impossible to check them till the wheel had passed over the whole length of the poor child’s body, and he lay lifeless on the pavement. You may imagine my mortal terror. I sprang out, raised the little fellow; and a number of people were already gathered around us, when the mother rushed forward, rent my heart with her cries, and excited the people to take vengeance on me. I was obliged to harangue the crowd to allay the rising storm; and after relating the manner of the accident, giving my name, and leaving money with the mother, I succeeded, not without some difficulty, in regaining my carriage and escaping from the tumult. I was near the gate, to which you descend by a tolerably steep hill. I was so absorbed by the thought of the accident which had just occurred, that I did not attend to the reins,—one slipped out of my hand. The horses, already hurried and alarmed by the confusion, set off, and came in contact with a wagon, with such force that one of them was killed on the spot, and my curricle smashed to pieces. I was thrown out with great violence, and for a moment rendered senseless by the shock. On recovering, I found myself lying with my face pressed so close to the ground that I was almost stiffled. I felt, however, the plunging of a furious animal above me, and heard the thunder of blows which seemed to strike my head, and yet gave me but little pain. In the midst of all, I clearly distinguished the cries of several persons around, and the exclamation, “He is a dead man—shoot the horse instantly!” At these words I received a blow on the temple which entirely deprived me of sense.
When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on a mattrass in the middle of a miserable room: an old woman was washing the blood from my head and face, and a surgeon, busied with his instruments, was preparing to trepan me. “Oh, let the poor gentleman die in peace!” cried the woman compassionately: and as I thought I felt distinctly that, spite of my external wounds, I had received no internal injury, I happily found strength to resist the operation; though the young man, who was an hospital pupil, was extremely eager to prove his skill—which, he encouragingly added, he had not yet had an opportunity of trying—upon my skull. I exerted all my remaining strength, ordered a carriage, asked for water and a looking-glass, in which, however, I could scarcely recognize myself, the greater part of the skin of my face being left in the high road. It was not till nature had replaced it by a new one, that my groom,—who was sitting by me at the time of the accident, and was thrown into a field by the road-side and but little hurt,—told me what strange circumstances had attended the accident. The pole of the curricle had splintered like a lance against the wagon: the light vehicle fell forwards, and I with it. The stump of the pole had stuck into the earth, and had fastened down my head. Upon me laid the horse entangled in the traces, making the most furious efforts to get free, and continually kicking with his hind feet against the broken pole, which thus became my sole preserver, by receiving the blows which would otherwise have dashed my head into a hundred pieces. This lasted almost a quarter of an hour before they could disengage the horse.
From that day I never liked meeting funerals.
As postscript to these reminiscences of my past life, I must add one comical incident. The boy I ran over recovered completely, and six weeks after his accident and mine, his mother brought him to me with rosy cheeks and dressed in his Sunday clothes. As I kissed him and gave his mother a parting present, the poor woman exclaimed with tears of joy, “Oh, Sir, I wish my boy could be run over so every day of the week!”
July 28th.