Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/258

254 scenery seems well adapted, if external objects may ever produce that effect, to "medicate a mind diseased, or pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow."

It accommodates at present about ninety patients, and two wings are in the progress of erection, to allow the reception of eighty additional ones. Its inmates have the constant care of a medical Superintendent, the religious instruction of a Chaplain, and the services of a Steward and Matron. We borrow the language of the former, to describe some of the efforts made to dispel the melancholy, so often the attendant of disordered intellect.

"We present them entertainment, in which the best and wisest may at times indulge, or to which all might profitably resort, under the tedium of convalescence from this, or any other disease. They are not limited to the patients; all our family, the resident officers of the Institution, and the attendants, participate in them. Our children mingle in the dance, and take their parts in the concert. The sewing-circle, the reading and musical parties, are held two afternoons of each week, under the direction of the Matron, who, excellent everywhere, exerts here, from her cheerfulness of manners and kindness of heart, the happiest influence. These parties have met in the parlors connected with the female wing, except during the pleasant afternoons of summer, when by common consent they were held upon the lawn. Here our female patients form groups beneath the shade, some sewing or knit-