There is but one thing they are neither of them quite cocksure about, and that is whether I am mad or sane.
And there is one thing—the only one on which they are agreed; namely, that, mad or sane, I am a great undiscovered genius!
My little sketches, plain or colored, fill them with admiration and ecstasy. Such boldness and facility and execution, such an overwhelming fertility in the choice of subjects, such singular realism in the conception and rendering of past scenes, historical and otherwise, such astounding knowledge of architecture, character, costume, and what not, such local color—it is all as if I had really been there to see!
I have the greatest difficulty in keeping my fame from spreading beyond the walls of the asylum. My modesty is as great as my talent!
No, I do not wish this great genius to be discovered just yet. It must all go to help and illustrate and adorn the work of a much greater genius, from which it has drawn every inspiration it ever had.
It is a splendid and delightful task I have before me: to unravel and translate and put in order these voluminous and hastily-penned reminiscences of Mary's, all of them written in the cipher we invented together in our dream—a very transparent cipher when once you have got the key!
It will take five years at least, and I think that, without presumption, I can count on that, strong and active as I feel, and still so far from the age of the Psalmist.
First of all, I intend
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Note.—Here ends my poor cousin's memoir. He was found dead from effusion of blood on the brain, with his pen still in his hand, and his head bowed down on his unfinished manuscript, on the margin of which he had just sketched a small boy wheeling a toy wheelbarrow full of stones from one open door to another. One door is labelled Passé, the other Avenir.