Aged seventy, removed hither from Old Bethlem. This poor old creature
is another incurable. She is generally quiet, but her tranquillity
is of very uncertain duration. Solitude is her delight; probably (if
one can form any judgment of the motives that influence a deranged
mind) because her fancy is then at full liberty to indulge in wild
vagaries without interruption; and confinement alone to her own
apartment, seems to afford her much satisfaction. To accomplish this
purpose, whenever she finds her nurse absent from the gallery, she
repairs to the window, raves, rants, screams, flings about her arms,
and attracts a crowd about the building: but as soon as her nurse
returns, she instantly retires to her own room, and her object is then
accomplished. She believes that she has been loaded with chains for
the last seventy years, and locked by her arms and legs, “and that God
Almighty comes and runs things into the guts of poor Hannah Prior.”
She is very fond of books, reads much, is indulged with the use of a
circulating library, and is very careful of the volumes procured for
her amusement; and though she seems to evince some understanding in her
selection of books, and to read with attention, yet so irritable is her
temper when her mind is diverted to any other object, that she cannot
bear conversation for five minutes: for when talking to another with
seemingly amicable mildness, some new whim crosses her fancy, and in an
instant she flies into the most violent passion, and becomes loud and
boisterous; but, soon recollecting the consequences of such conduct,
she moves off spontaneously to her room, and appears quite happy in
thus securing a retreat to her own exclusive company, and the enjoyment
of her reveries: and probably this mode of obtaining her favourite end
is the result of stratagem.
She seems to be affected by continual thirst, is extremely partial to
table-beer (the only beverage, besides water, with which she could be
indulged), and of this she would drink two, or even three gallons per
day, if permitted; but the nurse is obliged to be careful to prevent
such an excess.
She has been under no restraint whatever since she came here, except
being locked, occasionally, in her own room. She has quite a stentorian
voice, and, after retiring to bed at night, is extremely loud and
talkative.