{"product_id":"2940015870527","title":"MY EXPERIENCES IN A LUNATIC ASYLUM","description":"I.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  It's a mad world, my masters.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI suppose that the motto I have affixed to the first chapter of the brief\u003cbr\u003ehistory of a singular personal experience is by this time an accepted\u003cbr\u003eaxiom. Was it in one of Mr. Sala's columns of gossip that I was reading\u003cbr\u003ethe other day of the man of the pen who commented upon the imprisonment in\u003cbr\u003ean asylum of a brother of his craft merely by saying, 'What a fool he must\u003cbr\u003ebe! For years I have been as mad as he, only I took care never to say so'?\u003cbr\u003eThere are odd corners in the brains of most of us, filled with queer\u003cbr\u003efancies which are as well kept out of sight; eccentricities, I suppose\u003cbr\u003ethey may be called. The man who is so 'concentric' as to be innocent of\u003cbr\u003epeculiarities is a companion of a dull sort. But Heaven help us all when\u003cbr\u003esuch things may be called, and treated as, madness. For, if all of us were\u003cbr\u003eused according to our deserts in that way, who should escape the modern\u003cbr\u003esubstitutes for whipping? England would not contain the asylums that\u003cbr\u003eshould be constructed, and might go far to deserve the Gravedigger's\u003cbr\u003edescription of her for Hamlet's benefit: 'There the men are as mad as he.'\u003cbr\u003eLet me go a step further. There are few of us, perhaps, who have not seen\u003cbr\u003esomething in our lives of the strange nervous disorders which have been\u003cbr\u003egeneralised as 'hypochondria,' which are, in fact, I think, the different\u003cbr\u003eoutcomes of a common affection--temporary exhaustion of brain. Beyond a\u003cbr\u003ecertain point it becomes delirium, the wandering of weakness which is so\u003cbr\u003eclosely connected with many forms of illness, both in the beginning and\u003cbr\u003eduring the course and recovery. When the victims of delirium may be added\u003cbr\u003eto the eccentric members of society; when at any moment the certificates\u003cbr\u003eof any two doctors who may be utter strangers to the patient--acting under\u003cbr\u003ethe instructions of friends who are frightened and perplexed, perhaps, and\u003cbr\u003etry to believe that they are 'doing for the best' (I leave out of\u003cbr\u003econsideration here the baser motives which, it is to be feared, come\u003cbr\u003esometimes into play)--may condemn him to the worst form of false\u003cbr\u003eimprisonment, the death-in-life of a lunatic asylum, at a time when he is\u003cbr\u003ehimself practically unconscious;--who is there amongst us who can for a\u003cbr\u003emoment believe himself safe? Death-in-life did I say? It is worse; for it\u003cbr\u003eis a life-in-life, worse than any conceivable form of death. The sights\u003cbr\u003eand sounds through which one has to live can never be forgotten by him\u003cbr\u003ewho has lived through them, but will haunt him ever and always. Never let\u003cbr\u003enext friends persuade themselves that they are 'doing for the best' for\u003cbr\u003ehim for whom they so do. For themselves they may think that they are. For\u003cbr\u003ehim they cannot possibly do worse. Every nerve should be strained to save\u003cbr\u003ea man from that fate, if it be humanly possible, ay, even if he be mad\u003cbr\u003eindeed; for while there is life there is hope, till that step has been\u003cbr\u003etaken. When it has, I verily believe that hope is reduced to its smallest.\u003cbr\u003eFor the personal experience which I have to tell has taught me this: that\u003cbr\u003ethe man who comes sane and safe out of the hands of mad-doctors and\u003cbr\u003ewarders, with all the wonderful network of complications which, by\u003cbr\u003eCommissioners, certificates, and Heaven knows what, our law has woven\u003cbr\u003eround the unlucky victim in the worst of all its various aberrations, is\u003cbr\u003every sane indeed. And very safe too, happily. His lines afterwards are\u003cbr\u003enot altogether pleasant. The curious looks and whispers, the first\u003cbr\u003emeetings with old friends, the general anxiety that he should not 'excite\u003cbr\u003ehimself' (which he may be better excused for doing than most people,\u003cbr\u003eperhaps), magnified, no doubt, by his own natural sensitiveness, are\u003cbr\u003edifficult in their way. He does not mind them much, is amused by them at\u003cbr\u003etimes; for, with the strong sense of right on one's side, conflict is\u003cbr\u003erather pleasant than not to the well-balanced soul. But the thread of life\u003cbr\u003eand work and duty has been rudely broken by the shock, and has to be knit\u003cbr\u003eagain under great drawbacks. It can be done, though; and one starts again\u003cbr\u003ethe wiser and the better man.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47080987263216,"sku":"2940015870527","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940015870527","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}