speak lightly and loosely of insanity
as in itself attractive. But a moment's thought will show that if
disease is beautiful, it is generally some one else's disease.
A blind man may be picturesque; but it requires two eyes to see
the picture. And similarly even the wildest poetry of insanity can
only be enjoyed by the sane. To the insane man his insanity is
quite prosaic, because it is quite true. A man who thinks himself
a chicken is to himself as ordinary as a chicken. A man who thinks
he is a bit of glass is to himself as dull as a bit of glass.
It is the homogeneity of his mind which makes him dull, and which
makes him mad. It is only because we see the irony of his idea
that we think him even amusing; it is only because he does not see
the irony of his idea that he is put in Hanwell at all. In short,
oddities only strike ordinary people. Oddities do not strike
odd people. This is why ordinary people have a much more exciting time;
while odd people are always complaining of the dulness of life.
This is also why the new novels die so quickly, and why the old
fairy tales endure for ever. The old fairy tale makes the hero
a normal human boy; it is his adventures that are startling;
they startle him because he is normal. But in the modern
psychological novel the hero is abnormal; the centre is not central.
Hence the fiercest adventures fail to affect him adequately,
and the book is monotonous. You can make a story out of a hero
among dragons; but not out of a dragon among dragons. The fairy
tale discusses what a sane man will do in a mad world. The sober
realistic novel of to-day discusses what an essential lunatic will
do in a dull world.

Let us begin, then, with the mad-house; from this evil and fantastic
inn let us set forth on our intellectual journey. Now, if we are
to glance at the philosophy of sanity, the first thing to do in the
matter is to blot out one big and common mistake. There is a notion
adrift everywhere that imagination, especially mystical imagination,
is dangerous to man's mental balance. Poets are commonly spoken of as
psychologically unreliable; and generally there is a vague association
between wreathing laurels in your hair and sticking straws in it.
Facts and history utterly contradict this view. Most of the very
great poets have been not only sane, but extremely business-like;
and if Shakespeare ever really held horses, it was because he was much
the safest man to ho