patients flocking round us unrestrained. Of those who deny or
doubt the wisdom of this maxim after witnessing its effects, if
there be such people still alive, I can only say that I hope I may
never be summoned as a Juryman on a Commission of Lunacy whereof
they are the subjects; for I should certainly find them out of
their senses, on such evidence alone.
Each ward in this institution is shaped like a long gallery or
hall, with the dormitories of the patients opening from it on
either hand. Here they work, read, play at skittles, and other
games; and when the weather does not admit of their taking exercise
out of doors, pass the day together. In one of these rooms,
seated, calmly, and quite as a matter of course, among a throng of
mad-women, black and white, were the physician’s wife and another
lady, with a couple of children. These ladies were graceful and
handsome; and it was not difficult to perceive at a glance that
even their presence there, had a highly beneficial influence on the
patients who were grouped about them.
Leaning her head against the chimney-piece, with a great assumption
of dignity and refinement of manner, sat an elderly female, in as
many scraps of finery as Madge Wildfire herself. Her head in
particular was so strewn with scraps of gauze and cotton and bits
of paper, and had so many queer odds and ends stuck all about it,
that it looked like a bird’s-nest. She was radiant with imaginary
jewels; wore a rich pair of undoubted gold spectacles; and
gracefully dropped upon her lap, as we approached, a very old
greasy newspaper, in which I dare say she had been reading an
account of her own presentation at some Foreign Court.
I have been thus particular in describing her, because she will
serve to exemplify the physician’s manner of acquiring and
retaining the confidence of his patients.
‘This,’ he said aloud, taking me by the hand, and advancing to the
fantastic figure with great politeness – not raising her suspicions
by the slightest look or whisper, or any kind of aside, to me:
‘This lady is the hostess of this mansion, sir. It belongs to her.
Nobody else has anything whatever to do with it. It is a large
establishment, as you see, and requires a great number of
Page 34
Dickens, Charles – American Notes for General Circulation
attendants. She lives, you observe, in the very first style. She
is kind enough to receive my visits, and to permit my wife and
family to reside here; for which it is hardly necessary to say, we
are much indebted to her. She is exceedingly courteous, you
perceive,’ on this hint she bowed condescendingly, ‘and will permit
me to have the pleasure of introducing you: a gentleman from
England, Ma’am: newly arrived from England, after a very
tempestuous passage: Mr. Dickens, – the lady of the house!’
We exchanged the most dignified salutations with profound gravity
and respect, and so went on. The rest of the madwomen seemed to
understand the joke perfectly (not only in this case, but in all
the others, except their own), and be highly amused by it. The
nature of their several kinds of insanity was made known to me in
the same way, and we left each of them in high good humour. Not
only is a thorough confidence established, by those means, between
the physician and patient, in respect of the nature and extent of
their hallucinations, but it is easy to understand that
opportunities are afforded for seizing any moment of reason, to
startle them by placing their own delusion before them in its most
incongruous and ridiculous light.
Every patient in this asylum sits down to dinner every day with a
knife and fork; and in the midst of them sits the gentleman, whose
manner of dealing with his charges, I have just described. At
every meal, moral influence alone restrains the more violent among
them from cutting the throats of the rest; but the effect of that
influence is reduced to an absolute certainty, and is found, even
as a means of restraint, to say nothing of it as a means of cure, a