_Doctor Rowel argues very learnedly, in order to prove that not only his
wife and himself, but the reader also, and all the world besides, may,
for aught they know to the contrary, be stark mad._
As Dr. Rowel stepped briskly from the scene of his disaster on the way
to his diningroom, he slackened his neckcloth considerably, and with his
most critical finger felt very carefully on each side of his gullet,
in order to ascertain whether those parts had sustained any material
injury; and though he soon convinced himself that no organic
disarrangement had resulted, he yet reflected, in the true spirit of
an observant practitioner, that a fierce gripe by the throat is but an
indifferent stomachic.
Whatever other injury was or was not clone, his appetite, at least,
felt considerably reduced. Disasters like this, however, being common
to every individual who has the care of insane persons, he determined to
pass it by unnoticed, and to shake the very recollection of it from off
his own mind as soon as possible.
Shortly afterwards the doctor sat down to a well-furnished table, in the
place usually appropriated to that second-rate character, the _vice_,
and directly opposite his wife, who, in the absence of other company
than themselves, invariably took the chair. As he helped himself to
the breast of a young turkey, which a week previously had stalked
and gobbled with pride about his own yard, he remarked,--for his
mind reverted to the trick he had put upon Fanny with great
complacency,--that never, during the whole course of his experience, had
he so cleverly handled a difficult affair as he had that day. The lady
to whom he addressed himself might have considered, in the way of the
profession, that he alluded to some case of amputation at the hip-joint,
or other similar operation equally delicate, as she replied by begging
him not to inform her of it that night, as she was already almost
overcome with the nervous excitement consequent on the events of the
afternoon.
“Indeed!” the doctor exclaimed, raising his eyes. “What has occurred? No
patient dead, I hope?”
“Nothing of the kind,” returned the lady; “only that James Woodruff has
been talking again in such an extraordinary manner, that I feel quite
faint even now with it. Do reach me that bottle, dear. Really, Rowel, I
tell you again, that if he cannot be set at liberty very soon, I shall
be compelled to keep out of the way altogether. I will confine myself to
this end of the house, and never go within reach of him any more. What a
horrible creature he is!”
“He has not injured you, has he?” the doctor again inquired, as
he involuntarily run his fore-finger round the inner front of his
neckerchief.
“Of course not--how could he? But then that long hair gives him such a
frightful look, and at the same time, whenever he can catch a glimpse of
me, he always begs and prays me to prevail on you to set him free. I am
sure I wonder you keep him, even for my sake; and, besides that, the
man seems sensible enough, and always has been, if I am to judge by his
conversation.”
“Ah!--what--again?” exclaimed her husband, interrupting her. “How many
more times shall I have to repeat to you, that a madman, when under
restraint, cannot, in some particular cases, be in the most remote
degree depended upon, though his observations be apparently as
intelligent and sane as yours or mine?”
“I remember you have said so,” remarked Mrs. Rowel; “but it seems very
singular.”
“It may appear very singular in your opinion, my dear, because you are
not expected to possess the same erudition and extensive knowledge that
a professional man does in these things; though, with deference,
my dear, common experience and observation might by this time have
convinced you that my theory is perfectly correct. With these unhappy
people you should believe neither your eyes nor your ears; for if
you do, it is a hundred to one but that some of them, at one time or
another, will persuade you that they are perfectly sane and well, when,
were they to be freed from restrain, they would tear you in pieces the
very next instant.”
Mrs. Rowel looked somewhat disconcerted, and at a loss to meet her
husband in a region so scientific that neither seeing nor hearing were
of any use; though secretly she could not but wonder, if neither eyes
nor ears were to be trusted, by what superior faculty, what divining-rod
of intellect, a patient's madness was to be ascertained. Her doubts
were not wholly overturned by the ploughshare of the doctor's logic,
and therefore she very naturally, though with considerable show of
diffidence, stuck pertinaciously to her old opinion.
Her husband felt vexed,--and especially as he wished to impose upon her
understanding,--that with all his powers of speech, and his assumption
of profound knowledge, he could not now, any more than hitherto, succeed
in converting her to the faith which he himself pretended so devoutly to
hold, that lunatics sometimes could not be known by their conversation,
and that the individual James Woodruff, in particular, who was the
subject of their conversation, was actually as mad as a March hare,
notwithstanding the actions and appearances, undeviating and regular,
which in his case so obstinately forced upon Mrs. Rowel the private
conviction that he was quite as sound in intellect as any other subject
within the King's dominions. Nevertheless the doctor stifled the
feelings of petulant resentment which were rising in his bosom, and
satisfied himself simply by assuring his good, though somewhat perverse
lady, that it was no very unusual thing for a certain description of
lunatics to maintain their own sanity by arguments which, in any other
case, would be considered very excellent; though, with experienced
professional men, that very fact went farther in support of their
derangement than almost any other that could be brought to bear.
“Whenever,” continued the doctor, with some degree of warmth, “whenever
I meet with a patient,--never mind whether he is under medical treatment
or not,--a patient who endeavours by argument and proof to show me that
he is _compos mentis_,--who seeks for evidence, as it were, in his own
mind to substantiate the sanity of that very mind,--that is, a man who
appeals for proof to the very thing to be itself proved,--who tests the
mind by the mind,--when I meet with a patient of that description, it
seems to imply a kind of doubt and distrust of his own intellect, and I
set him down, in spite of what anybody can say to the contrary, as _non
compos mentis_, and a proper subject on whom to issue a writ _ideota
inquirendo vel examinando_.”
“I cannot argue with you like that, Frank,” observed the doctor's wife;
“but do you mean to say that a man cannot himself tell whether he is
mad,--and that nobody else, by what they see and hear, can tell either?”
“I do!” exclaimed Rowel. “I contend that numberless instances exist of
latent mental derangement, which are totally unknown both to the insane
themselves, and to those persons who are about them.”
“Then how do _you_ know it?” asked the lady.
“From the very nature of things, my dear,” Mr. Rowel replied. “Time was
when verdicts of _felo de se_ were returned in cases of self-destruction;
but now every twopenny shopkeeper is wise enough to know, that the very
act of self-murder itself is evidence of mental derangement.”
“But what has this to do with the question?” demanded Mrs. Rowel.
“It has this to do with it,” continued her husband, “that neither you,
nor I, nor anybody else, however wise we may think ourselves, can know
for a certainty, positively and conclusively, whether we are mad or
not.”
“Then do you mean to say that _I_ am mad?”
“I mean to say this, my dear, that for aught you know to the contrary,
you may be.”
“Come, that is foolish, Frank. But you do not think so, do you?”
“Think!--I think nothing about it,” replied Rowel; “only, as you seem
to believe that such a lunatic as James Woodruff is very much in his
senses, it might be supposed you had a bit of a slate loose yourself.”
“Oh, I am sure I have not!” tartly resumed the lady. “You ought to be
ashamed of yourself for saying such a thing.”
“No, no!--I do not say any such thing, by any means. The case of
Woodruff is certainly, in one sense, the most singular I ever knew, and
to me, in my situation, a peculiarly painful one; but what then?--what
can I do?”
“Why, you know, my dear,” replied Mrs. Rowel, in a deprecatory tone of
voice, “that you _do_ manage his property, after all. The man is right
enough as far as that goes?”
“Right enough, truly--I _do_. But how do I? Is not the trouble as great
as the profit? I keep it altogether where it was for him,--prevent him
from squandering it in his mad fits, as he was about to do at the time
I caused him to be placed in confinement,--keep him out of harm's
way,--clothe him,--feed him,--medicine,--attendance,--everything,--and
not a single item put down against his estate for all this. What was I
to do, do you suppose? Was it likely that I should stand quietly by, and
see all that he had himself, and all that my sister Frances left him, go
to rack and ruin, waste and destruction, as if it were of no more value
than an old song?”
“But what was it that he was doing?” asked Mrs. Rowel; “for I am sure I
could never find out.”
“He was doing nothing actually,” said the doctor. “But what should
you have thought of me, if I had kept my hands in my pockets until the
mischief was past before I attempted to interfere? It was what I foresaw
he _intended_ to do that caused me to step between. Was not he going to
pull that good new house to pieces, for the sake of patching up the old
one with its materials? The man must have been stark raving mad to have
thought of such a thing, and everybody would have said so.”
“_I_ should not have said so,” observed the lady; “though there is
nothing wonderful about that, as you have told me that _I_ may be mad
too. But it was always my opinion that the old family house was worth
ten of the other, if it had but the same fire-grates and chimney-pieces
put in it.”
“The fact is,” replied he, “you were all mad together about that
tumble-down crazy concern, merely because it _was_ the old house; and
I am very glad I put a stop to it when I did, and in the manner I did,
though I think he knows better now, mad as he is at present. To tell you
the truth, my dear,” and the doctor lowered his voice to a more serious
and impressive tone, “I do not think he cares much, or perhaps not
anything at all, about it. His liberty seems to be the principal
thing with him. Do you know, he offered this evening to make the whole
property over to me as a free gift, if I would let him out.”
“Did he indeed!” exclaimed the lady, as tears of pity swam in her eyes.
“Poor fellow!--poor fellow!”
“Why, poor fellow? I didn't prompt him to say what he did. Besides, I
would not take it. How dare I let him out? His gift would be good for
nothing to me, being void at law. I cannot let him out. And even if I
had ever dreamed of trying such a hazardous experiment, it would, under
present circumstances, be impossible.”
“But why _impossible_, Frank?” asked Mrs. Rowel.
Frank Rowel began to imagine, from the turn which his wife appeared
inclined to take in this business, that the relation of his interview
with Fanny, which had discovered to him so unexpectedly the person
of James Woodruff's daughter, and his own niece, would not materially
profit him in the eyes of that lady; and therefore, although he had at
first intended to make it known to her, he for the present forbore, and
contented himself by assuring her how exceedingly lucky it was that, for
her own sake, she had some one about her whose knowledge was not so soon
set aside, and whose feelings of compassion were not so easily excited
as her own; or otherwise it would inevitably come about that a whole
establishment of lunatics would some day or other, out of pure kindness,
be let loose to run rampant over and affright the whole country-side.
“Then James is to remain there?” questioned the lady.
“I see no chance for him,” was the reply; “everything is against him. He
_must_ be confined for life.”
Mrs. Rowel sighed, looked at her husband, then at the decanter of sherry
which stood on the table, then smiled significantly, and then added in a
half-jesting tone, though with a very serious and fixed intention,
“I 'll take a glass of wine with you, my dear.”
And so she did, and several others after it.
In fact, though I abhor anything that might be supposed to touch on
scandal, Mrs. Rowel liked sherry.