Soon Alfred became the doctor's pet maniac. They were often closeted together in high discourse, and indeed discussed Psychology, Metaphysics, and Moral Philosophy with indefatigable zest, long after common sense would have packed them both off to bed, the donkeys. In fact, they got so thick that Alfred thought it only fair to say one day, "Mind, doctor, all these pleasant fruitful hours we spend together so sweetly will not prevent my indicting you for a conspiracy as soon as I get out: it will rob the retribution of half its relish, though.""Ah, my dear young friend and fellow-student," said the doctor blandly, "let us not sacrifice the delights of our profitable occupation of imbibing the sweets of intellectual intercourse to vague speculations as to our future destiny. During the course of a long and not, I trust, altogether unprofitable career, it has not unfrequently been my lot to find myself on the verge of being indicted, sued, assassinated, hung. Yet here I sit, as yet unimmolated on the altar of phrenetic vengeance. This is ascribable to the fact that my friends and pupils always adopt a more favourable opinion of me long before I part with them; and ere many days (and this I divine by infallible indicia), _your_ cure will commence in earnest; and in proportion as you progress to perfect restoration of the powers of judgment, you will grow in suspicion of the fact of being under a delusion; or rather I should say a very slight perversion and perturbation of the forces of your admirable intellect, and a proper subject for temporary seclusion. Indeed this consciousness of insanity is the one diagnostic of sanity that never deceives me and, on the other hand, an obstinate persistence in the hypothesis of perfect rationality demonstrates the fact that insanity yet lingers in the convolutions and recesses of the brain, and that it would not be humane as yet to cast the patient on a world in which he would inevitably be taken some ungenerous advantage of."Alfred ventured to inquire whether this was not rather paradoxical.
"Certainly," said the ready doctor; "and paradoxicality is an indicial characteristic of truth in all matters beyond the comprehension of the vulgar.""That _sounds_ rational," said the maniac very drily.
One afternoon, grinding hard for his degree, he was invited downstairs to see two visitors.
At that word he found out how prison tries the nerves. He trembled with hope and fear. It was but for a moment: he bathed his face and hands to compose himself; made his toilet carefully, and went into the drawing-room, all on his guard. There he found Dr. Wycherley and two gentlemen; one was an ex-physician, the other an ex-barrister, who had consented to resign feelessness and brieflessness for a snug L. 1500 a year at Whitehall. After a momentary greeting they continued the conversation with Dr. Wycherley, and scarcely noticed Alfred. They were there _pro forma;_ a plausible lunatic had pestered the Board, and extorted a visit of ceremony. Alfred's blood boiled, but he knew it must not boil over. He contrived to throw a short, pertinent remark in every now and then. This, being done politely, told; and at last Dr. Eskell, Commissioner of Lunacy, smiled and turned to him: "Allow me to put a few questions to you.""The more the better, sir," said Alfred.
Dr. Eskell then asked him to describe minutely, and in order, all he had done since seven o'clock that day. And he did it. Examined him in the multiplication table. And he did it. And, while he was applying these old-fashioned tests, Wycherley's face wore an expression of pity that was truly comical. Now this Dr. Eskell had an itch for the classics: so he went on to say, "You have been a scholar, I hear.""I am not old enough to be a scholar, sir," said Alfred; "but I am a student.""Well, well; now can you tell me what follows this line--"Jusque datum sceleri canimus populuinque potentem'?""Why, not at the moment.""Oh, surely you can," said Dr. Eskell ironically. "It is in a tolerably well-known passage. Come, try.""Well, I'll _try,_" said Alfred, sneering secretly. "Let me see--'Mum--mum--mum--populumque potentem, In sua victrici conversum viscera dextra.'""Quite right; now go on, if you can."Alfred, who was playing with his examiner all this time, pretended to cudgel his brains, then went on, and warmed involuntarily with the lines--"Cognatasque acies et rupto foedere regni Certatum totis concussi viribus orbis In commune nefas; infestis que obvia signis Signa, pares aquilas, et pila minantia pilis.""He seems to have a good memory," said the examiner, rather taken aback.
"Oh, that is nothing for him," observed Wycherley;"He has Horace all by heart; you'd wonder:
And mouths out Homer's Greek like thunder."The great faculty of Memory thus tested, Dr. Eskell proceeded to a greater: Judgment. "Spirited lines those, sir.""Yes, sir; but surely rather tumid. 'The whole _forces_ of the shaken globe?' But little poets love big words.""I see; you agree with Horace, that so great a work as an epic poem should open modestly with an invocation.""No, sir," said Alfred. "I think that rather an arbitrary and peevish canon of friend Horace. The AEneid, you know, begins just as he says an epic ought not to begin; and the AEneid is the greatest Latin Epic. In the next place the use of Modesty is to keep a man from writing an epic poem at all but, if he will have that impudence, why then he had better have the courage to plunge into the Castalian stream, like Virgil and Lucan, not crawl in funking and holding on by the Muse's apron-string.
But--excuse me --quorsum haec tam putida tendunt? What have the Latin poets to do with this modern's sanity or insanity?"Mr. Abbott snorted contemptuously in support of the query. But Dr. Eskell smiled, and said: "Continue to answer me as intelligently, and you may find it has a great deal to do with it."Alfred took this hint, and said artfully, "Mine was a thoughtless remark:
