I. It's a mad world, my masters.I suppose that the motto I have affixed to the first chapter of the briefhistory of a singular personal experience is by this time an acceptedaxiom. Was it in one of Mr. Sala's columns of gossip that I was readingthe other day of the man of the pen who commented upon the imprisonment inan asylum of a brother of his craft merely by saying, 'What a fool he mustbe! For years I have been as mad as he, only I took care never to say so'?There are odd corners in the brains of most of us, filled with queerfancies which are as well kept out of sight; eccentricities, I supposethey may be called. The man who is so 'concentric' as to be innocent ofpeculiarities is a companion of a dull sort. But Heaven help us all whensuch things may be called, and treated as, madness. For, if all of us wereused according to our deserts in that way, who should escape the modernsubstitutes for whipping? England would not contain the asylums thatshould be constructed, and might go far to deserve the Gravedigger'sdescription of her for Hamlet's benefit: 'There the men are as mad as he.'Let me go a step further. There are few of us, perhaps, who have not seensomething in our lives of the strange nervous disorders which have beengeneralised as 'hypochondria,' which are, in fact, I think, the differentoutcomes of a common affection--temporary exhaustion of brain. Beyond acertain point it becomes delirium, the wandering of weakness which is soclosely connected with many forms of illness, both in the beginning andduring the course and recovery. When the victims of delirium may be addedto the eccentric members of society; when at any moment the certificatesof any two doctors who may be utter strangers to the patient--acting underthe instructions of friends who are frightened and perplexed, perhaps, andtry to believe that they are 'doing for the best' (I leave out ofconsideration here the baser motives which, it is to be feared, comesometimes into play)--may condemn him to the worst form of falseimprisonment, the death-in-life of a lunatic asylum, at a time when he ishimself practically unconscious;--who is there amongst us who can for amoment believe himself safe? Death-in-life did I say? It is worse; for itis a life-in-life, worse than any conceivable form of death. The sightsand sounds through which one has to live can never be forgotten by himwho has lived through them, but will haunt him ever and always. Never letnext friends persuade themselves that they are 'doing for the best' forhim for whom they so do. For themselves they may think that they are. Forhim they cannot possibly do worse. Every nerve should be strained to savea man from that fate, if it be humanly possible, ay, even if he be madindeed; for while there is life there is hope, till that step has beentaken. When it has, I verily believe that hope is reduced to its smallest.For the personal experience which I have to tell has taught me this: thatthe man who comes sane and safe out of the hands of mad-doctors andwarders, with all the wonderful network of complications which, byCommissioners, certificates, and Heaven knows what, our law has wovenround the unlucky victim in the worst of all its various aberrations, isvery sane indeed. And very safe too, happily. His lines afterwards arenot altogether pleasant. The curious looks and whispers, the firstmeetings with old friends, the general anxiety that he should not 'excitehimself' (which he may be better excused for doing than most people,perhaps), magnified, no doubt, by his own natural sensitiveness, aredifficult in their way. He does not mind them much, is amused by them attimes; for, with the strong sense of right on one's side, conflict israther pleasant than not to the well-balanced soul. But the thread of lifeand work and duty has been rudely broken by the shock, and has to be knitagain under great drawbacks. It can be done, though; and one starts againthe wiser and the better man.