"They call uspatients, to control and to oppress us, but they do not allow us the indulgence of sick folk! Often after a restless night, I would like to sleep in the morning. But no: the hour has come, the bell rings, we must rise whether we will or not. I am not, then, a patient any longer!"
At Gheel, no bell strikes the limit between sleep and waking. Pleasure, the example of activity, and appetite, are stimuli sufficient to counteract sluggishness. Sleep is never disturbed, unless by order of the physician on some particular occasion. Often, says Dr. Parigot, I have asked on entering, "Where is Mr.——?" The answer would be, "Doctor, ourheerkeis still abed; his breakfast is waiting him there by the fire;" and this at ten or eleven o'clock.
It may be asked whether the frequency of accidents and of escapes does not counterpoise the advantages of so much liberty.
No! accidents are neither common nor serious. Quarrels and spats are easily appeased; they occur very seldom, which is due, in part, to the tendency of the insane to keep apart rather than to associate with each other. This tendency is not contravened at Gheel, as at asylums, where the annoyance of forced association exasperates susceptible characters and irritable nervous systems.
"I am really mad, then, for them to condemn me to live with these people!" cried a monomaniac in despair. Enter almost any hall of an asylum where the insane assemble to warm themselves: you will be heart-struck by the sinister expression of this feeling in persons most of whom are as sensible as yourself to manias which are not their own, and whose punishment consists in finding themselves everywhere and always with the insane. These men and women are overwhelmed withennui. The room in which they pass the night does not belong to them, and this warmed gallery, that yard, that garden, are for them but walled cages. You may read upon their faces the aggravation thus occasioned, while the chances of their cure diminish daily.
Now, turn to the lunatic at Gheel, who enjoys the free air, and feels a property in his chamber, in his books, his tools, his plants, his stones and various collections. He adorns his domicile after his own fashion; his inscriptions or designs appear upon the walls. He is busy in acting his dream; he roams in the woods and fields; he fishes in the streams, or spreads snares for birds, or labors at his will. Another writes all day in the sand of the streets the story of his thoughts— hieroglyphics to which he alone has the key. A third relieves his inward agitation by external movement; all day innocently busy, he returns tranquillized to his lodgings at night The rest are at work with their hosts, or at sport with the children, their friends and peers.
That melancholy which engenders the disgust of life, may often be calmed by a change so complete in one's whole existence, while the predisposition to it is not aggravated by the despair of incarceration. Dispersion in families distinct and often isolated, counteracts the danger of contagious imitation.
In the course of half a century, only two acts of personal violence are on record.
The enjoyment of their personal liberty sufficiently explains why so few try to escape from Gheel. Most of the patients have found there a deliverance from previous constraint; yet, to provide against all casualties, the administration, as soon as advised of the disappearance of a patient from his guardian's premises, sets in movement an effective police corps.Before this was instituted, the spontaneous intervention of the neighbors sufficed; for it was understood, for many leagues round, that any individual whose demeanor awakened suspicions of his sanity, should be conducted to Gheel as to his legal residence. The restorer of a runaway was also entitled to mileage for his trouble. When it is known that a certain lunatic is beset with the idea of escaping, which may take possession of the insane like any other, it is customary, after obtaining a permit therefor from the physician in charge, to fasten two rings or bracelets, covered with sheep-skin, upon the legs, with a covered chain, about a foot in length, connecting them. By this means the lunatic, without being confined, has his movements obstructed, while attention is directed to him. How preferable this is to the mortalennui, to the sullen despair of confinement in an asylum! What matters it to the patient that his limbs are free, if before him is the barrier of bolts and bars—of massive doors, and impassable walls!
Themoraleof the insane cannot be otherwise than favorably affected by association with persons who protect him with solicitude, while they appeal to his good sense and good will, admitting him on a footing of equality to their hearths, their tables, and their work: such a welcome banishes from his mind the idea of humiliation and oppression, which everywhere else is connected with that of sequestration. Instead of being a pariah shaken off by society, he now belongs to humanity; his dignity as a man is safe, for it is respected in its chief privilege—liberty.
In the name of this liberty, he is trusted—he is constituted, in a measure, the arbiter of his own lot. If he do[es] not abuse it, supervision of him is relaxed. If his freedom be sometimes limited, the least remaining gleam of reason suffices to render him conscious that the restrictions imposed are not hostile in their spirit, but are simply precautions which he may disarm by a rational conduct.
Such sentiments sustain or awaken within him the life of the soul; they influence his manners and bearing. He does not lose the habit of society, and if he one day return home, it may be without shame or embarrassment; his absence will have been a journey, and not a humiliating sequestration.
Translated from political into psychologic language, liberty is spontaneity; and if we analyze it more profoundly, we find this term applicable to those actions only which employ the limbs, the senses, and the intellectual faculties as ministers of our inmost affections of will. For all spontaneous action, the head, the hands, and the heart are in union—the conflict between the spirit and the flesh is reconciled.
This supreme harmony implies the unison of man with himself, with his fellow-creatures, and with his spirit-fountain life. Express it as you will, its conception is the basis of the Christian therapeutics of insanity. All must be obtained of the lunatic by gentleness, and not by intimidation or violence; nothing ought to oppress the individuality of the patient. The mission of the guardians is to render inoffensive, amiable, and useful, a person imperfectly conscious of his acts. It is by one of the noblest powers of the spirit that they say to him virtually, Be free, and understand the sympathies that animate us. Alexander of Macedon accepted the beverage of his physician Philip before mentioning that Philip had been accused of intending to poison him.Now the insane are, in the immense majority of cases, no more guilty of ill intentions than the Acarnanian doctor, and our Alexanders of Belgium are poor peasants.
These Gheelois have faith in their providential mission, faith in the ancient miracles which have predestined their country to the cure of insanity, faith in their own power. Esquirol one day expressed to a peasant of this place his apprehensions about paroxysms of mania. The countryman laughed at his fears, and said: "You do not understand these folks; I am not strong, and yet the most furious of them is nothing for me." This is the way they all talk. The sentiment of an unlimited and privileged power is insinuated from childhood into the soul of the Gheelois by example and tradition. This power grows with his muscular force and experience; it imposes upon the insane, who feels himself feeble and disarmed before a master, and usually submits without resistance. Any desired help can be had, moreover, at a moment's warning, from the neighbors. The exigencies of family life with the insane invite the inhabitants of Gheel to respect their inoffensive fantasies, and to study in all its aspects the difficult art of directing their erring wills, of redressing their false ideas when they threaten mischief, of taking advantage of a lingering sentiment of sociality or a last gleam of reason, to secure themselves against violence and surprises. On the other hand, as they can have recourse to material constraint only in accidental cases, as they can reckon but exceptionally on the intelligent obedience of patients, it is especially by the evolution of sympathies, those quick rays of the soul which usually survive the intellect, and are often extinguished only with life, that the Gheelois have understood the tactics of social government. That women should excel in this diplomacy is not surprising. On them devolves the most delicate and important part of a system based on managing by gentleness the most whimsical characters. Simple, ignorant, laborious, without the vanities of fashionable life, but kind by nature, religious by education, and guided by her heart, the woman of Gheel accomplishes marvels of devotion and sagacity. By her cares, which no disgust repels, she is the visible Providence of the poor madman. By her ingenious expedients, she averts stormy crises, and never shows herself afraid. Without title or costume, she is a true sister of charity. To maintain her power over her fantastic subjects, she studies their intimate thoughts, observes their least gestures, divines their secret projects, and learns to read souls the most dissembling. To subdue the most savage, the young girl does not shrink from the manoeuvres of an innocent coquetry. At other times, it is the imperious magnetism of the look, of the attitude, of the voice, that lays its spell upon the spirit and dissipates fury. It is not rare to see maniacs of herculean frame obeying little women bowed and emaciated by age, and whose only arms are a few words spoken with authority. The husbands and fathers are not backward in these arts of management. Besides their innate turn for it, the peace of their household and their interests lead them to it. All idleness is a loss, and the boarder losing his time and making others lose theirs, if he remained a non-value, would soon become a burden. Compulsion to labor is out of the question. It is necessary to humor the lunatic, to entice him by rendering the work attractive. Is he restive?They are patient. Is he awkward? They make fun of his blunders without humiliating him; he will do better next time. As soon as he succeeds a little, he is flattered and encouraged; he soon comes to like the job. Gradually he is tamed and trained. Behold him, then, an active and a useful member of the family, proud of himself, a friend and child of the house, rising at the same hour as his companions and sharing their toils. Fallen as he may be from man's estate, does he not still afford greater capacities of sociability than those of wild beasts? To succeed in the education of the insane, the inhabitants of Gheel have displayed a persevering and intelligent energy, the power of which is enhanced by the natural sympathy of man for man. Much charity in the heart, gentleness upon the lips, friendly actions,reasoningeven, at an opportune moment, exert a sovereign empire over characters whose susceptibility is exalted by disease. Patience is the first of virtues necessary in this community, and it has always risen to the height of the aberrations it has had to meet. No eccentricity provokes either surprise or anger. For twenty years Daniel Peter has been boarding with a Gheelois. This maniac covers the walls of his chamber with the most original caricatures; never does he mingle with the members of the family; he likes only one of the children, Joseph; but he loves him to the point of abdicating his own personality. He nicknames all around him, persons and beasts, even the matron, whom he calls the "tambour major." When she asks him through the door whether he wishes to eat, he replies: Joseph would like it; or else, Joseph will have none. The only way of getting anything from him is to compare him with some tall object, calling him a tree, a mast, a tower, etc. On Sunday only he will eat no meat, and takes flight at sight of a woman or of a horse. Notwithstanding all these whims, he is beloved by all the family, and remains inoffensive, because he is well treated. He returns to his lodgings regularly every evening after having wandered in the woods and over the heath. From this exchange of kind offices, which is the general tone, the most solid attachments spring. "You must have seen the afflicted family ofder Phlegeraround the sick-bed ofdie Phlegling, you must have witnessed the touching scenes when the latter goes forth cured from the establishment, in order to get a clear idea of the means which constitute the basis of the treatment and the proper employment of which assure the success of the colony. These testimonies of gratitude and of mutual affection, these tears of happiness and of regret, these promises to see each other again, are the sincerest homage that can be rendered to the solicitude of the guardians." [Footnote 229]
[Footnote 229:Bulckeus. Report of 1856, pp. 34, 33.][Transcriber's note: This line is blurred.]
Nothing better proves how deeply these feelings have penetrated, not merely into individual souls, but into the blood and race, than the conduct of the children of Gheel toward the insane. Elsewhere generally, and even at Horenthals, in the neighborhood, we have seen the unfortunate persecuted and derided. Childhood, especially, is without pity for them. Nothing like this at Gheel. There theZottis, even for children, an amusing companion, without wickedness, often a comrade of their games, sometimes a protector. It seems that between beings who have not yet quite attained their reason, and those who have lost it, some alliance is formed. Dr. Parigot relates his first visit as inspector to a farm near Gheel."It was a cold, snowy spell in the winter. The family were pressing round the hearth beneath the vast chimney-place, and the best seat was occupied by a lunatic. The unexpected appearance of a stranger on the threshold of this poor house, troubled the quiet inhabitants a little. The frightened children took refuge, with little cries, between the legs of the maniac. This poor man's affection for the children was vividly depicted in his countenance, as he protected them with a gesture. This affection was, perhaps, the only tie that attached him to society, but this tie of love protected himself, by deserving the regard of his hosts." We have been gently touched by seeing in the streets of Gheel an old man bearing two children in his arms, while two others followed his steps. The intellectual focus was extinct, or projected but a feeble and vacillating light, but the affectional focus still revealed by its glow the moral grandeur of man even in his saddest miseries.
A woman of Gheel was in company with a maniac, when suddenly he was seized with a paroxysm of excitement. The danger was great, her presence of mind was still greater. She took the young child that she was bearing in her arms, and whom the madman loved, placed it in his arms, and availed herself of this diversion to slip out by the door; then, concealed behind the window, she followed with eye and heart the movements of the lunatic. Marvellous calculation! the child had at once and completely calmed the madman, who, having caressed him and set him upon the floor, was now playing with him. A few minutes afterward, the mother could reenter, the crisis was passed. No one at Gheel blamed this conduct in the mother, who had estimated justly the fascination of infancy.
When the equality of age invites to friendship, this becomes very lively between the children of the house and the insane. There is one family which boards a young lunatic, who is also deaf and dumb. She has become a cherished sister for the daughters of her host. When they are at work together, enter and announce that you come to take the afflicted child back to the hospital. Instantly a cry of terror, followed by the precipitate flight of these girls, carrying their friend along with them, will teach you how lively is the alarm of their tenderness.
A woman of beautiful and noble countenance, and superior education, had been found insane at Brussels, without any information concerning her. From her own imperfect answers, it seems she was a native of Mauritius, where her father had been a man of note in the French revolution. Entrusted to a family of farmers at Gheel, they welcomed her with a delicate deference for her probable antecedents. During twenty years, they served a little table apart for her, with more elegance than their own; yet they received on her account only the pittance allowed for paupers. One day when Mr. Parigot mentioned this, they answered him, "It is enough, doctor; we love our little lady, and we wish to keep her here. No one could pay us for what we are doing; but we have no children, and this is our society."
A father on his death-bed had recommended to his daughter a poor lunatic, who had witnessed her birth, and who had amused her when little. When she married, she brought him in dower to her husband by the terms of the contract. Heaven blessed her generosity. The lunatic lived to be nearly a hundred years old. During this period, their house had to be rebuilt; but the spouses made a sacrifice of its symmetry and convenience, so as to leave untouched the cell of this old man which had become endeared to him by a long abode.
The relatives of patients are often too poor to offer presents. One day Dr. Parigot was visiting a young epileptic. As he had always found him well cared for, and knew that his friends came to see him every year, he ventured to ask the mistress of the house what she received on his account. She smiled and replied: "Our Joseph's relations are poor like me, and make their journey afoot. I keep them here a week, and they return afoot, but I give them a rye loaf and bacon to eat on the road. These are our presents." The exercise of these pious and delicate virtues has formed in the heart of the Gheel folk a sentiment of corporate honor and of mutual responsibility, which withstands individual perversions as well as the conflicts of social life. The whole community is interested in the fate of these unfortunates. Every one there might affirm concerning the insane, thehumani nihil a me alienum puto.
The household that has no lunatic seems to lack something, and looks out for a favorable occasion to supply this want. The reciprocal supervision of the inhabitants prescribes moderation and justice to all. If woman presides in the household, and man out of doors, the eye of the community, watching over both, protects the weak in the course of daily life, as in the struggles which a paroxysm sometimes necessitates. Denounced by the cries of the victim, any arbitrary violence would be promptly reported to the physicians and to the administration. If official defenders were absent, the public voice would suffice, and it could not be silenced. Any suspicion of improper conduct is readily cleared up by the interchange of visits in the neighborhood, and thus a protection is established permanent, universal, invisible, sanctioned by custom and superior to all administrative patronage or written rule.
A population thus reared in the practice of sincere devotion to a special humanitary office, by immemorial tradition, by interest, by personal and communal honor, and by religious faith, may well bear comparison with the most zealous servants of any public or private asylum. The brothers or sisters of charity, who are but casually guardians of a certain infirmity the more difficult of treatment, because it attacks the soul as well as the body, can hardly possess those hereditary faculties and the thousand expedients which from infancy upward germ in the child and develop in a family and locality, devoted to the treatment of insanity. How much more unequal is the comparison with simple mercenaries! Heaven forbid we should ignore the abnegation of self, so often evinced in the most obscure services, or the unprovided aptitudes which neither danger nor disgust discourage. Yet it cannot be denied that the insane generally persist in regarding all overseers as jailers and complacent tools of the injustice of families or of society. At Gheel, on the contrary, the most susceptible patients can see around them only hosts who take in boarders, and among whom they often find friends and companions. Before all disinterested judgment, what is elsewhere the competition of business here assumes the character of a social and medical mission, while a closer analysis discerns, in this creation of a lively faith sustained at once by charity and interest, a fortunate equilibrium of the springs of human action. The twofold motive of honor and interest acts in effect like a spring regulated by a counterpoise.
Is the guardian distinguished for his sagacity and fidelity in the discharge of his assumed cares? He will be kept upon the list and recommended to families by the administration. He will have the opportunity of selection, and may exercise it so as either to gratify his sympathies or to advance his interests.
In the sphere of a true rural life, are freely developed those affinities which re-ally man with the beast and bird, and this first degree in the scale of affections is far from being without influence on the state of certain patients. Some are interested in the cattle which they tend, in the horses, the dogs, or the birds, of which they make companions. One lunatic at Gheel is constantly thinking of birds; no one is more ingenious than he in catching them. Once caged, he never leaves them, he takes them from his cell into the family apartment, or, while they disport in the sunshine, their vigilant master mounts guard to protect them from their enemy the cat. Is it doubtful that these child-like enjoyments dissipate many sorrows, or that they aid to re-establish the harmony of the soul with the body? Deprive this man of the society of his birds, indubitably his condition will be aggravated. Whether as predisposing or exciting causes, wounded pride and vanity and passional isolation amid the pressure of crowds underlie many forms of insanity. In assembling under his protection the group of inferior animals, every man may innocently satisfy sentiments which are ruffled and disappointed among his own species. Spiritual space is enlarged about him, and the heart is amused by the play of passions similar to his own in organisms so different as to render impossible the collisions of rivalry.
To this first appeasement of internal agitation by all the voices of nature, labor comes to add its powerful revulsion. Its benefits are now so universally known and proclaimed that, wherever space permits, it is becoming one of the bases of treatment. At Bicêtre, the neighboring farm of Saint Anne is in great part cultivated by a squad of lunatics chosen among those who most readily accept the discipline of command and corporeal exercise. Work is at Gheel the easy law of every day and every dwelling, allowing for the antipathy which certain lunatics evince toward every occupation, and for incapacity by certain kinds of illness. But industry at Gheel has this precious distinction, that there the insane works among persons of sane mind, whose speech and actions bring him back to reason, whereas elsewhere he is surrounded with his companions in misfortune, whom he finds the same in the fields as at the asylum. Instead of being sequestrated in fantastic and unnatural society, he continues to live in the real bosom of a social family whose children are reared by his side, he hears rational conversations and witnesses amusing scenes. Does he desire to take part in these? He is obliged to the act of intelligent reflection. Occasions naturally supervene when the lunatic, butting against inflexible reality, is led to recognize the bewilderment of his ideas.
The family compassionates his real or imaginary troubles, and the latter are not the least afflictive. The lunatic is very sensible of such kindness; for among many of them, the memories of childhood, of friendship, or of neighborhood, are preserved quite vivacious amid the ruins of the intellect. The death of a parent or friend will often draw warm tears.The unfortunate is consoled by showing interest in him. When this sympathetic indulgence can no longer be asked of the natural family, where hope for it elsewhere than in the adoptive family? Less discomposed by its tenderness, the latter more easily obtains the obedience of the lunatic, who even through his darkened reason, fails not to perceive that he has neither the right nor the means of imposing his caprices on strangers.
One fact constantly occurs at Gheel upon the arrival of raving maniacs. After a few days passed in their guardian's house they can scarcely be recognized. Coming with the strait-jacket or in bonds, they are appeased as soon, almost, as these are taken off. Must this change be attributed to the new sphere that environs them, to the regard that is extended to them, or to the new current of impressions and ideas that traverses their own folly? These influences, severally useful, are strengthened by their association. Through them, what remains sound in the mind is aided by good tendencies; what there is morbid, is restrained. At Gheel is perpetually renewed the phenomenon which occasioned so much surprise at Bicêtre, at Charenton, and in all the hospitals of Europe, when intrepid humanity broke their chains and whips, considered, until then, the only possible instruments for controlling the insane. It now remains for science to confess that every closed establishment is in itself a chain, the last but the heaviest that remains to be suppressed.
The lunatic taken to an asylum is, from the first, assailed with painful impressions, bunches of large keys, massive doors, bolts, bars, cells, yards, walls, guardians, uniforms, regulations, bells, all the appearances and all the realities of a prison. At Gheel, welcomed with alacrity by the family to which his abode secures a pension, he feels himself at his ease. This first welcome exerts over the insane soul the most auspicious influence; for one who comes from a hospital, it is a true emancipation. By daily repetition, this contentment soon becomes an energetic preference. When of late years certain councils of the Belgium hospitals decided on withdrawing their insane from Gheel, to transfer them to a rival establishment for the sake of some trivial economy, it occasioned the most touching scenes. Guardians and lunatics embraced each other weeping, and several of the latter hid themselves to escape from this transfer. Force had to be employed with others. Besides breaking in upon their affections and their habits, they knew they were passing from liberty to confinement! When questioned on this subject, their feelings clearly appear. A foreign physician visiting Gheel with me, one day asked a lunatic who had spent some time in one of the lock-up establishments, which system he preferred. "You may answer that for yourself," he replied reservedly; but a long and silent look beaming with joy was the expressive interpretation of these words. This attachment to Gheel and to the guardian's family often survives the cure. Guardians have often been known to keep gratuitously, wards restored to their right minds, but who had lost their families or their relations with the world. Not seldom is a friendly correspondence kept up all their lives, while living far apart. Annual pilgrimages from Brussels to Gheel renew ties formed during the malady.
There seems to be no possible doubt that life for the insane is more benign at Gheel than in the immense majority of asylums. Patients sent there in the initial period of insanity, frequently experience a change for the better, and many recover their reason. Some cures have been effected at Gheel, after two or three years of abortive treatment elsewhere. Maniacs, much agitated, in whom the spring of life preserves its energy, are cured sooner than the quiet ones, who often become imbecile. Monomaniacs, especially religious monomaniacs, are seldom cured. They are more fortunate with intermittent forms of insanity, and such are the patients preferred by the Gheelois, as most helpful in their work. Cures are more frequent on the farms, where the insane labor, than in the village, where they are less occupied. It seems to be ascertained that the number of cures has diminished with the falling off in devotion, and this result is no surprise to science, which, without intervening in the religious question, accounts faith among the most powerful therapeutic agents. Among the patients classed as curable, the proportion of cures has averaged between fifty and sixty-five per cent. Unfortunately, about three fifths of the patients sent to Gheel are desperate cases, on whom all the resources of art have been vainly exhausted elsewhere; for Gheel makes no flourish of trumpets, and only of late years has possessed even an infirmary, or a corps of physicians. Its simple hygiene of liberty, and the family life of poor peasants, is not calculated to exert theprestigeof those sadly magnificent palaces in which the insane are confined by thousands, and where pretentious science so unwisely snubs nature. Certain medical administrators have even pretended that Gheel was only fit for the incurable. Formerly, they came in search of miracles; now, they seek a last abode here. It should be remarked, moreover, that hospitals, where the keeping of the insane is a burden, are inclined to dismiss them as cured on the earliest signs of real improvement; while at Gheel, where their keeping is a source of profit, and where the patient is often more comfortable than at home, nothing hastens his departure, which is authorized only after mature examination by the physician of the section and the general inspector. The chances are greater here than elsewhere, that the patient's dismissal corresponds to a solid cure.
In default of complete restoration, the conditions of life at Gheel determine in the insane a general amelioration which constitutes the gentlest manner of being compatible with mental derangement. The morbid state, reduced to its simplest expression, excludes neither physical comfort nor a certain order of moral enjoyments, some of which are delicate even to refinement. The subversive tendencies are attenuated, if not quite annulled. A young lady, confined for a year in a large asylum, used to break up there everything that she could lay her hands upon, and the severest restraints had to be forced on her. At Gheel, free among the peasants, she breaks up only little bits of wood. Unable to overcome entirely the fatal impulse that besets her, still she understands that she is in a family which deserves consideration, since, far from oppressing her, they allow her to obey her instinctive needs of active movement. The young lunatic does her hosts as little harm as she can, and this trait admirably exhibits the influence of Gheel, which mitigates when it cannot cure, and obtains, better than any other system, the state of passive "innocence."
This innocence rises occasionally to a sympathetic and rational benevolence. Among the old lunatics there are, generally, compatriots or acquaintances of the new-comers. The former become the interpreters of their companions in misfortune; they initiate them into the kind of life led at Gheel; they advise them how to manage, point out to them what the place presents of interest, and thus assist in naturalizing them. If liberty is the first principle of the colonial system, labor is the second. Although every lunatic is free to abstain from it, and no physical discipline or coercive measure is brought to bear on him, a few sympathetic words and example frequently suffice to wean the insane from idleness. From half to two thirds of the whole number are usefully occupied. The household cares are shared by women, by the aged and the infirm, along with the children and servants of the family. Most of the artisans, such as tailors, shoe-makers, cabinet-makers, blacksmiths, bakers, curriers, etc., find a place in the local industry. Some work on their own account, and are patronized in proportion to their skill. There used to be at Gheel an excellent cabinet-maker, very intelligent, and who earned a good deal of money in the exercise of his trade. A Dutchman, he had served in the French army, was made prisoner in Russia, then incorporated among the Cossacks of the Don. In 1815, being in Belgium, he deserted, or rather resumed his liberty and nationality, and married at Brussels, where he fell into hallucinations which occasioned his transportation to Gheel. He lived twenty-five years there, practising his art with success, and talked very rationally about matters in general, only he affirmed that the devil every night entered his body by the heels, and lodged somewhere in it, which led him to conclude all his discourses by asking for a probe to hunt the evil spirit. Care is taken to place every lunatic in a family so situated in village or country, as to employ his or her industrial capacities to the best advantage. The furious maniacs are most in request by the peasants, a preference easily explained. Fury attests the energy of the organism; the internal force, physical or moral, is disordered but abundant. In their periods of calm, madmen of this class are vigorous laborers; whereas no profit can be made of an idiot or a paralytic. On a sudden and violent paroxysm of acute mania, the farmer's family, aided by the passengers and neighbors, soon obtain control of it. Quieted again, the lunatic resumes his work, and this work, which profits the farmer, ameliorates by an energetic and continuous diversion the state of the patient, rendering his paroxysms less frequent.
Although the importance of working is now very generally understood, few asylums are provided with adequate grounds, workshops, and implements for employing their patients to advantage; hence this progress is still a rare exception, and even when it exists, its benefit is much diminished by the vexatious constraint of its discipline resembling penitentiary labor. In most of the rich establishments life passes in oppressive idleness, leaving the patient all day long to his dreams, without procuring him that muscular fatigue so propitious to sleep at night. It is enough to drive a sane man mad.
As for mental occupation with books, games, spectacles, and social assemblies, they tend to excite instead of reducing the circulation of the brain, and are often opposed to the desired equilibrium of the organism.In the Russian hospitals, the military organization of labor becomes but a tribute of passive obedience to absolute authority, and ceases to effect energetic revulsion from the bewilderment of the mind. So needlework affords to women a kind of instinctive or mechanical activity of the fingers, which leaves the imagination vagabond. Such labors, prolonged for many hours, are so much the more objectionable from their sedentary nature, which rather favors than averts glandular obstructions and correlative disturbance in the circulatory and nervous systems.
The mode of life of the small farmer, considered as a whole, combines natural interests with varied occupations and movements requiring skill and strength in moderate degree, observation and attention. Above all, man feels himself here a direct coagent with the elemental forces, a shareholder in the commonwealth of the universe, alternately obeying and commanding, utilizing and enjoying the play of solar and planetary forces. It is true that all have not equally the intellectual consciousness of their participation in this great drama, nor the intimate satisfaction and dignity that accrue from it; yet none can be alien to its penetrating virtues, they sustain the meanest hind and the most oppressed slave; much more, the free, the voluntary, and amateur collaborator. The aspects of nature wear the color of the spirit; they are sanative in proportion as man becomes the mirror, the guide, and the instrument of her powers. In the prisoner, at best their suggestions cherish painful aspirations. For the free laborer alone are they pregnant with infinite sweetness.
The arts, and especially music, contribute to the social life of Gheel, and repeat for many a tormented spirit the experience of David with Saul. [Footnote 230]
[Footnote 230: I Kings xvi. 23.]
A lunatic, surnamed Colbert the Great, a skilful violinist, founded the harmony or choral society, and his name is still honored in the memory of all the Gheelois. His portrait adorns the hall where the society holds its meetings, and this homage attests the cordial fraternity, devoid of prejudices and of false shame, which characterizes the Gheel folk. In their concerts, at patriotic or religious festivals, the parts are distributed to the musicians according to the irrespective talents; if they play or sing well, nothing more is required. To improve natural gifts, there is a singing-school for the insane. Müller, a distinguished German composer and chief of the harmony club, is the director designated by the public voice, who solicits the honor of forming, among the insane, pupils who shall assist him in his concerts.
Several of the insane are members of the choir of Saint Dymphna. Many of them piously mingle in the processions. They are often seen in this church imploring on their knees the grace of heaven. Only those whose illusion it is to believe themselves gods or kings, do not kneel, but otherwise behave themselves with decency and respect. Here, as elsewhere, individuals subject to aberrations of reason, still undergo the influence of the prevailing tone and manner of deportment, and give in their turn good examples. They are generally much attached to the faith of their childhood. In health or in sickness, and at the approach of death, they are admitted to the sacraments of the church whenever their condition is not such as to exclude moral conscience. These acts raise the poor lunatic in his self-respect, and in the eyes of the population they are a medicine of the soul.
Toward the close of the eighteenth century, when the rigors previously enforced against the insane were relaxed, a king was the first to experience the benefits of an opposite system. George III. was treated by Willis on the conditions of personal liberty, out-door amusements, and the family life. The sons of Willis, faithful to their father's lessons, continued to receive at Greatford, lunatics boarded in private families, but at prices which limited this privilege to the wealthy. Gheel, without splendid palaces, gardens, and parks, which delight visitors, but make little impression on those who are used to them, accords to the poorest the treatment of George III., and with the precious addition of work.
In France, Pinel was the promoter and persevering apostle of the reform first inaugurated at Bicêtre, then extended to the Salpétrière and Charenton. Aiming to raise to the dignity of patients those hapless victims who had previously been treated as criminals or as wild beasts, beaten and chained, he realized half his programme in making them simple prisoners, watched and cared for with intelligence. His successes were propagated throughout Europe, and all public or private asylums abandoned the system of direct violence or constraint, to give, in the measure of their resources in grounds and buildings, a larger part to liberty of action and to labor. The so-called "non-restraint" system of England merely substitutes for active cruelties dark cells padded with mattresses. Some asylums endeavor to utilize the influence of the director's family circle, but only at Gheel are the common rights of man accorded to the insane. Benevolent sentiments toward the insane have been cherished in Mohammedan countries; regular and methodical labor with a view to economy is common to many establishments; excursions and amusements are organized by a few: but nowhere so effectively as at Gheel have liberty, sympathy, and labor been combined in the common interest of the insane and of their keepers. These, with the sedative influence of a mild, moist climate on the temperament, and the consolations of religion for the soul, have almost divested insanity of its dangers, and authorize emancipation from those chains of stone which elsewhere weigh no less than chains of iron on the unhappy victims of fear and distrust.
This humble parish addresses to every conscience a lesson eloquent in its simplicity of tender devotion toward our brothers the most fallen, and whom the world disdains and repulses. It shows how charity may precede and complete science.
And the great sea closed over that wild struggle, and the wreck went down with its precious freight of immortality!
There was a single cry that came from the white lips, one glance from the tearless, appealing eyes.
"All ready!" sounded a rough voice from the long-boat.
"For my child!" she called out to me, above the awful din and tumult. And I could only clench the rosary with its precious crucifix in my bosom, and spring into the already crowded boat. I missed and fell, and, grasping an oar, fought the angry sea for life.
I vaguely recollect a fearful shriek, as the steamer turned and settled; and when she sank, the strong current drew in the last of the boats, the boat in whichshehad taken refuge. I closed my eyes, but in my ear rang the agony, the wild despair of that cry, "My God! my God!" I suppose I fainted; for I only remember opening my eyes on the deck of a small vessel, which was scudding under bare poles before a perfect hurricane. Weeks passed by, and in a quiet English village, on the soft, balmy south coast, I lay trying to regain the strength which brain fever had quite exhausted.
My kind English nurse told me that through it all I grasped the rosary, and her heart was touched by my devotion to the crucifix. This recalled that fearful autumn morning, when, amid the dimness of the fog, theArcticwent down to her burial.
Reverently I kissed the crucifix, and murmured myCredo; from the very depths of my soul went upward, "I believe in God!" Then, as I clasped the cross, I felt it move; but I went through my prayers, and I suppose that the pressure of my hands caused the spring to move, and a closely folded paper fell upon my breast. The crucifix was large and hollow. I carefully unfolded the delicate paper, and a shudder passed over me as the vision of that pale woman, struggling amid the breakers, arose from memory's gloaming. The very first words that met my eye were, "I believe in God! and," she wrote, "I will follow his guidance. Far from those that are dearest to me, I have buried my husband where his fathers rest; and now, my child's voice calls me from my home across the Atlantic. I dreamed last night of a fog, a dense mist, that hung like a curtain; of a fearful crash, and a vision of anguish that seems too real for dreaming; but my child's voice is echoing in my heart, and may God speed my wanderings! A sorrow as of coming woe oppresses me; but I believe in God! and his mercy will save me.
"My little daughter, Marguerite Cecil, is with her guardian, Henry Alan, No. 86 East —— street, New York. May the everlasting Arms forever enfold her!
Ruth Cecil."
Poor lamb! my heart whispered, the one idol, and so desolate! Well, the spring found me on my journey to the busy metropolis; and wending my way to East —— street, I found the most elfish little fairy that fate had ever set drifting on life's ocean all alone. A bonnie wee thing was Madge Cecil; so frail that her tenure here seemed too slight for holding; yet from the wonderful gray eyes came flashes that gave promise of a splendid future.Golden hair courted the sunbeams, and, flecked with light, wrapped around the most graceful contour that twelve summers had ever shone upon. She knew of her mother's death, for her deep mourning dress contrasted almost painfully with the delicate whiteness of her complexion. And when I drew her upon my knee and put the rosary in her hand, she threw her arms around me, and sobbed as though her heart would break. I really trembled as I listened, for a storm of passionate agony was convulsing a frame which had little to offer in combat. "Mamma! mamma!" she sobbed out, and she clasped me closer. "Will God take me home to her? O mamma! come back!"
My heart ached for the child, whose grief seemed agonizing her very soul, so I tried to quiet her, and told her of the brighter home where, with the holy Mother of God, her own mother would be singing hallelujahs. I told her that this earth was only a brief journeying-place which led to the sweet haven of eternal love, the land where farewells could never bring a cloud, nor partings cast a shadow. Then the large gray eyes looked trustingly up into my face, and with her arms around me, I felt the love of my heart go out toward her with a strength and purity I had never known before.
Soon after this, her guardian placed her at Madame Cathaire's large boarding-school, and "Uncle Hal," as she now called me, was always her chosen confidant and friend.
Years passed, and I watched her beautiful girlhood unfold. She had rare talents, a quick intellect, and intense appreciation of the beautiful; indeed, a purer spirit seldom lived in this mortal tenement. Yet, with her enthusiastic, impulsive nature, she possessed a quiet strength of control that caused visions of the old martyrs to rise; for I felt that she, too, could wrestle with passion, and, with God's grace, subdue all sin.
And thus time sped on, and each passing season left its impress only to mature and render more perfect the succeeding; and her eighteenth birthday found her the realization of spiritual loveliness. The exquisite golden curls of her childhood fell in irregular waves from the low Grecian brow, and the sweet, earnest eyes always recalled those of Guido's angel, bearing the branch of lilies, in his beautiful picture of "The Annunciation." She was living with her guardian, and her great wealth attracted many in a city where gold is "the winning card."
There was a charming freshness andnaïvetéin the young girl, and at times almost a religious light gleamed from the depths of her large gray eyes.
Her guardian's nephew, Henry Elsdon, had just returned from Europe, and I watched him as he dallied, at first carelessly, among the crowd that gathered around her.
I did not fancy the young man, and there was an indescribable barrier which rose up always when I tried to like him. He was what the world would call handsome anddistingué, but the droop of the lower lip, the heavy jaw, and narrow forehead truly told of the fierce animal nature within. Madge was very lovely in this first season, and it was plainly apparent that he entirely failed to impress her; indeed, at times her coldness toward him was marked.
On returning from vespers, one mild May evening, she asked me to accompany her on her Sunday visits. Of course, I went, for who could refuse her? Down the dark streets we wandered, till we arrived at an old brick house that, a hundred years ago, may possibly have been in its prime.She tapped at the dingy door, and, like an angel of light, her presence seemed to brighten the room. A sick woman lay stretched on a miserable pallet, and a racking cough shook her weak frame; but a smile of happiness illumined the pinched features, and her voice was tender as it thanked Madge for her gentle deeds of love.
A woman's kindliness is nevermore beautifully displayed than in a sick chamber; and my heart did homage to the young girl, as she knelt by the sick woman's bed, murmuring, in low, comforting tones, the prayer:
"Visit, we beseech thee, O Lord! this habitation, and drive far from it all the snares of the enemy. May thy holy angels dwell herein, to preserve her in peace; and may thy holy benedictions always remain with her, through Christ our Lord. Amen."
Her face was radiant, and her upturned eyes were holy with inspiration. Just then a shadow darkened the doorway, and I looked, to meet the eyes of one perfectly absorbed in the scene before him. My startled movement recalled Madge, and a soft color deepened in her cheeks as she seemed to feel the observation of the stranger.
"O Miss Cecil! here is Mr. Grey, who has been as kind as yourself. This is Miss Cecil, Mr. Grey." And then he advanced, and the fading sunlight fell upon a splendid specimen of manhood. Six feet of magnificently proportioned height, and a head which Vandyke would have gloried in; steel-gray, flashing eyes, a brow upon which intellect and will were marked, and a complexion which the suns of Southern Europe had darkened into olive.
"Pardon me. Miss Cecil, but the likeness is perfect, and the name so familiar. Was your mother Ruth Anderson?"
Tears streamed from her eyes as she half-whispered, "Yes!" She could never speak calmly of her mother, for her love seemed only to strengthen as years made the loss more keenly felt. In an instant he was by her side, and, with the tender but perfectly respectful manner—the manner so acceptable to a woman—he told her how eagerly he had sought for this child of his old and esteemed friend. He had gone abroad with her mother, and remained in Europe till within a few months. He had read of the fearful doom of theArctic, and vainly tried to trace the child.
"I need not tell you, Madge, how very glad I am to see you, and, before long, I shall hope to be a very good friend."
And they did meet very often. Madge spent the summer at Newport, and Mr. Grey's cottage was near her guardian's lovely home. I suppose there is truth in the old and familiar theory of elective affinities; for the strength of his nature seemed to absorb her gentle, loving trust, and her impulsive, passionate heart was entirely swayed by his steady, strong affection; in truth, each chord felt the echo from his. And so, in the autumn, I was not surprised when she pointed to a magnificentsolitairediamond on the forefinger of her left hand, and told me that she had promised to be the wife of Newton Grey.
They had returned to New York, and Madge and Mr. Grey were looking over a portfolio of engravings at the further end of the library, while I sat smoking in front of the bright coal-fire, dreaming day-dreams, as the smoke curled and floated away, when suddenly the door opened and Henry Elsdon came in. I shall never forget the look that, only for one single moment, darkened his features; only for an instant his face looked thus, and then, with a quick, soft step, he crossed the library, andsuavelyjoined the circle around the engravings.I could see that Newton Grey would never stoop to suspect him; but Madge recoiled from him, for there was not the slightest affinity between such natures.
"Uncle Hal," she told me one morning, "I always feel that I ought to cross myself when Henry Elsdon comes near me, that I may pray to be saved from some impending evil."
And my lamb was right, for truly a wolf did prey near for her destruction.
Business called me to the South, and I left New York to breathe the balmier air of Charleston. It was a delicious winter, that soft season in the sunny South. Violets in the gardens in December, and the scarlet winter roses and sweet mignonette brightening the lovely villa—like houses on the battery.
I was slowly descending the stone steps that led from the beautiful cathedral, while the last echoes of the bishop's gentle voice yet rang in my ears, when a letter was put into my hands by my friend Colonel Everett. I did not open it then, but strolled down Broad street, to the Mills House, and in my pleasant room I sat down to enjoy Madge Cecil's confidence. Imagine my horror as I read:
"Come to me, dear Uncle Hal, for God alone can strengthen me in this fearful sorrow. I cannot understand, but yesterday Mr. Grey left me after a short visit, and to-day they tell me that he is dead. I hear low whisperings of a terrible sin, of which Henry Elsdon is guilty. For my dead mother's sake, come and aid your desolate Madge."
I left that evening, and on Saturday held my darling in my arms. Then the whole story in its fearful detail was repeated. Henry Elsdon had wished to marry my ward, but she had refused him, some time before her engagement with Newton Grey. Elsdon's pride was piqued, and he determined to be revenged. Then began a system of deceit that was Machiavelian; for with subtle skill he won Grey's friendship, till at last, in one unguarded moment, he dared to speak lightly of Madge. In an instant Grey rose, his face white with a terrible calm:
"I am in my own rooms, Mr. Elsdon, therefore you are safe; but you must feel that each word that you have uttered shall be retracted, else there can be but one settlement."
"And, by God! there shall be but one settlement!" And Elsdon's face glared with hate.
And so in the code that teaches murder—cold, passionless, brutal murder—they sought refuge; and Newton Grey fell, pierced through the temples.
Sorrows seem truly convoyed on this ocean of life, this sea of wild unrest; for in a few months Mr. Alan lost his fortune, and, of course, my ward's wealth was also engulfed in the great whirlpool of ruin.
A strange suspicion clouded my heart, and with an intuition of the truth, I felt that I could single out the demon who had spread destruction in this home.
But with the suavity of deceit, he subtly turned aside the tide of censure, so justly his due, and the world even forgave him for the duel; for strange travestied stories floated through the city. Who gave them to the public? I felt, I knew that Henry Elsdon had only added to the infamy which weighed upon his soul; but as yet the avenger had not struck, the race of hell had not been accomplished! ...
It was the exciting winter of '60 — December, 1860! South Carolina had torn herself from her sisters, and Washington was in a ferment. Crowds congregated at the hotels to watch the opening of a season fraught with destiny.Men with reckless, evil passions increased the excitement; for cognac burned and whiskey infuriated, and the whole mass of humanity seemed consumed by the one madness, mutual hate!
It was the evening of the 27th of December. The telegraph had spread the news of Anderson's evacuation of Fort Moultrie, and the agitation was culminating in effort. There is a season when enthusiasm pulses, till the wild madness intoxicates all feeling; then some sudden crowding on of events drives the fierce current into action, and the mighty mass heaves and surges with one will, one heart, for the conflict; and so it was to night. I stood on the corner of Pennsylvania avenue and Seventh street, watching the changing faces which the gas-light flared upon, when a woman's voice in wild terror startled me. "In the name of the cross, forbear!" she cried. And I turned to see a face pale with fear and horror. In an instant I was beside her; she held the cross of her rosary toward the man who had dared, not only to insult a woman, but one of God's ministering angels, those pure spirits of comfort, the Sisters of Mercy.
I struck the brute from her, but not without recognizing the features, even though inflamed and distorted by liquor. She almost fainted in my arms, but I placed her in my sister's carriage, just then passing, and ordered it to drive to the address which she gave.
What there was in the tones of that woman's voice I could not explain to myself; but a sad chord vibrated till the echoes waked in my heart feelings that I thought were sleeping quietly in a jealously guarded grave of the past. ...
Four years had gone by since that night, and the war that shook this continent had closed; ended were the years that had brought their holocaust, the proof of the calibre of the men who had died on the field of honor.
Grant's triumphant legions garrisoned the Confederate capital, and I was appointed surgeon in charge of —— Hospital, where the sick and wounded of both armies were tended by the Sisters of Mercy.
The intense heat of those early summer days I can never forget, and the poor fellows in blue and gray tossed from side to side on the narrow cots in the fever wards. It was my night in —— Hospital, for I was appointed to relieve Dr. ——, and I observed a "sister" bending over a patient whose white face and faint voice told me that his hours were numbered.
"Sister Mary," said the feeble tones, "will you bathe my temples? they burn and throb as fiercely as my own heart. Sister, can a vile wretch ask you to stand near when he is dying? Sister, you who are pure and holy, tell me if God will pardon me?"
"He came to save sinners!" I heard the low voice whisper. And she smoothed back the tangled masses of dark, waving hair, and tenderly soothed the poor fevered brow on which the dews of death were gathering. "Stay near me, sister. Let me hold your hand, while I listen to your voice, that recalls one in the long ago. O God! look down in mercy!"
And she whispered sweet words of comfort that calmed the unrest of sin and shame.
"Sister, if I could give all the years that I have wasted, if I would toil and struggle and pray for pardon, would Christ have mercy upon one whose years are heavily weighted with sin?"
"Repent, and ye shall be saved."