ontrol. As I felt that I could
easily elude my keeper, should I care to escape, his presence also
contributed to _my_ peace of mind, for I argued that the ability to
outwit my guard would atone for the offence itself.

I then started for the hospital; and I went with a willingness
surprising even to myself. A cheerful philosophy enabled me to turn an
apparently disagreeable situation into one that was positively pleasing
to me. I convinced myself that I could extract more real enjoyment from
life during the ensuing weeks within the walls of a "retreat" than I
could in the world outside. My one desire was to write, write, write.
My fingers itched for a pen. My desire to write was, I imagine, as
irresistible as is the desire of a drunkard for his dram. And the act
of writing resulted in an intoxicating pleasure composed of a mingling
of emotions that defies analysis.

That I should so calmly, almost eagerly, enter where devils might fear
to tread may surprise the reader who already has been informed of the
cruel treatment I had formerly received there. I feared nothing, for I
knew all. Having seen the worst, I knew how to avoid the pitfalls into
which, during my first experience at that hospital, I had fallen or
deliberately walked. I was confident that I should suffer no abuse or
injustice so long as the doctors in charge should live up to their
agreement and treat me with unvarying fairness. This they did, and my
quick recovery and subsequent discharge may be attributed partly to
this cause. The assistant physicians who had come in contact with me
during my first experience in this hospital were no longer there. They
had resigned some months earlier, shortly after the death of the former
superintendent. Thus it was that I started with a clean record, free
from those prejudices which so often affect the judgment of a hospital
physician who has treated a mental patient at his worst.

XXX

On more than one occasion my chameleonlike temperament has enabled me
to adjust myself to new conditions, but never has it served me better
than it did at the time of which I write. A free man on New Year's Day,
enjoying the pleasures of a congenial club life, four days later I
found myself again under the lock and key of an institution for the
insane. Never had I enjoyed life in New York more than during those
first days of that new year. To suffer so rude a change was, indeed,
enough to arouse a feeling of discontent, if no