For one year and seven months I was an inmate of Dr. Cook’s private institution—one year and five months after had written to those who should have been interested in my removal from the asylum. Mr. J. B, (my husbands brother.) came for me with the understanding that I was to return to my home in Jonesville. Mrs. Cook was at the depot to see me away. Taking both my hands, she said: “I hope you have not met with any unkindness while you have been with us. We do not always know what is passing on the halls; and sometimes unpleasant things occur, unbeknown to us— things we would not approve.” She requested me to write to her just as soon as I had arrived at home and was rested; saying she should feel anxious to hear from me. Both the doctor and his estimable wife possessed many excellent traits of character, combined with exalted Christian principles—the doctor being just such a man as we need at the head of every institution of the kind. He worked for the good of his patients, and tried to benefit them. Thanks, many thanks, for his efforts to do me good. I did not express as much, thinking I should see him again under more favorable circumstances, but did not only for a moment just before leaving, and had no time to inform him of the cruelty of Miss Peabody. Neither had I time to say anything to Mrs. Cook in regard to this, for the cars came in before she had finished speaking with me, and I was hurried on board the train with a hasty good-bye.

—from Chapter 1, Behind the scenes, or, Life in an insane asylum, 1878

Illustration

Dancing by Lunatics, sketch by W.H. Davenport, 1865

Illustration

Scene in the Hospital for Incurables, sketch by W.S.L. Jewett, 1864

Reading III

Life
by Machado de Assis

End of time. Ahasverus, seated upon a rock, gazes for a long while upon the horizon, athwart which wing two eagles, crossing each other in their path. He meditates, then falls into a doze. The day wanes.

AHASVERUS. I have come to the end of time; this is the threshold of eternity. The earth is deserted; no other man breathes the air of life. I am the last; I can die. Die! Precious thought! For centuries of centuries I have lived, wearied, mortified, wandering ever, but now the centuries are coming to an end, and I shall die with them. Ancient nature, farewell! Azure sky, clouds ever reborn, roses of a day and of every day, perennial waters, hostile earth that never would devour my bones, farewell! The eternal wanderer will wander no longer. God may pardon me if He wishes, but death will console me. That mountain is as unyielding as my grief; those eagles that fly yonder must be as famished as my despair. Shall you, too, die, divine eagles?