Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/20

Rh have a moment of sane consciousness, find themselves surrounded by roses.

Whilst my conductor hither, an agreeable and humourous quaker, and one of the directors of the asylum, was listening with much attention and apparent interest to an old lady's communication to him respecting her affairs in Jerusalem, another whispered to me ironically, “A magnificent place this is; yes, quite a paradise! Don't you think so?”—and added, with some reserve, and in a lower voice, “It is a hell! dreadful things are done here!”

Alas! the poor unfortunates cannot always occupy themselves with music and flowers. Some compulsion must, at times, be made use of; but it is enough that the former means preponderate, and the fact of so many patients being cured, proves it; and that the latter are made use of as seldom, and in as mild a form as possible.

A young, good-looking officer said to me, “Ah! I see that you are come to liberate me, and that we shall go out together, arm in arm!” Then added he, “Tell me now, if you had a sister whom you loved better than anything else in the world, and you were kept shut up to prevent your getting to her, how should you like it?” I said that, if I were not well, and it was right for me to take care of my health for a time, I would be patient. “Yes, but I am well,” said he, “I have been a little unwell, a little tête montée, as they say, but I am altogether right again, and these people are certainly gone mad who cannot see it, who obstinately keep me here.”

The insane have commonly this resemblance to wise people, that they consider themselves to be wiser than others. My young colonel was evidently tête montée still, and accompanied us with warm expressions in favour of ladies.

Gerard College is a large school in which three hundred boys, otherwise unprovided for, are instructed in every kind of handicraft trade. A naturalised Frenchman, a