two); and said:
‘I am an antediluvian, sir.’
I thought the best thing to say was, that I had suspected as much
from the first. Therefore I said so.
‘It is an extremely proud and pleasant thing, sir, to be an
antediluvian,’ said the old lady.
‘I should think it was, ma’am,’ I rejoined.
The old lady kissed her hand, gave another skip, smirked and sidled
down the gallery in a most extraordinary manner, and ambled
gracefully into her own bed-chamber.
In another part of the building, there was a male patient in bed;
very much flushed and heated.
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‘Well,’ said he, starting up, and pulling off his night-cap: ‘It’s
all settled at last. I have arranged it with Queen Victoria.’
‘Arranged what?’ asked the Doctor.
‘Why, that business,’ passing his hand wearily across his forehead,
‘about the siege of New York.’
‘Oh!’ said I, like a man suddenly enlightened. For he looked at me
for an answer.
‘Yes. Every house without a signal will be fired upon by the
British troops. No harm will be done to the others. No harm at
all. Those that want to be safe, must hoist flags. That’s all
they’ll have to do. They must hoist flags.’
Even while he was speaking he seemed, I thought, to have some faint
idea that his talk was incoherent. Directly he had said these
words, he lay down again; gave a kind of a groan; and covered his
hot head with the blankets.
There was another: a young man, whose madness was love and music.
After playing on the accordion a march he had composed, he was very
anxious that I should walk into his chamber, which I immediately
did.
By way of being very knowing, and humouring him to the top of his
bent, I went to the window, which commanded a beautiful prospect,
and remarked, with an address upon which I greatly plumed myself:
‘What a delicious country you have about these lodgings of yours!’
‘Poh!’ said he, moving his fingers carelessly over the notes of his
instrument: ‘WELL ENOUGH FOR SUCH AN INSTITUTION AS THIS!’
I don’t think I was ever so taken aback in all my life.
‘I come here just for a whim,’ he said coolly. ‘That’s all.’
‘Oh! That’s all!’ said I.
‘Yes. That’s all. The Doctor’s a smart man. He quite enters into
it. It’s a joke of mine. I like it for a time. You needn’t
mention it, but I think I shall go out next Tuesday!’
I assured him that I would consider our interview perfectly
confidential; and rejoined the Doctor. As we were passing through
a gallery on our way out, a well-dressed lady, of quiet and
composed manners, came up, and proffering a slip of paper and a
pen, begged that I would oblige her with an autograph, I complied,
and we parted.
‘I think I remember having had a few interviews like that, with
ladies out of doors. I hope SHE is not mad?’
‘Yes.’
‘On what subject? Autographs?’
‘No. She hears voices in the air.’
‘Well!’ thought I, ‘it would be well if we could shut up a few
false prophets of these later times, who have professed to do the
same; and I should like to try the experiment on a Mormonist or two
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to begin with.’
In this place, there is the best jail for untried offenders in the
world. There is also a very well-ordered State prison, arranged
upon the same plan as that at Boston, except that here, there is
always a sentry on the wall with a loaded gun. It contained at
that time about two hundred prisoners. A spot was shown me in the
sleeping ward, where a watchman was murdered some years since in
the dead of night, in a desperate attempt to escape, made by a
prisoner who had broken from his cell. A woman, too, was pointed
out to me, who, for the murder of her husband, had been a close
prisoner for sixteen years.
‘Do you think,’ I asked of my conductor, ‘that after so very long