Doctor Rowel argues very learnedly, in order to prove that not only his wife and himself, but the reader also, and all the world besides, may, for aught they know to the contrary, be stark mad.

AS Dr. Rowel stepped briskly from the scene of his disaster on the way to his diningroom, he slackened his neckcloth considerably, and with his most critical finger felt very carefully on each side of his gullet, in order to ascertain whether those parts had sustained any material injury; and though he soon convinced himself that no organic disarrangement had resulted, he yet reflected, in the true spirit of an observant practitioner, that a fierce gripe by the throat is but an indifferent stomachic.

Whatever other injury was or was not clone, his appetite, at least, felt considerably reduced. Disasters like this, however, being common to every individual who has the care of insane persons, he determined to pass it by unnoticed, and to shake the very recollection of it from off his own mind as soon as possible.

Shortly afterwards the doctor sat down to a well-furnished table, in the place usually appropriated to that second-rate character, the vice, and directly opposite his wife, who, in the absence of other company than themselves, invariably took the chair. As he helped himself to the breast of a young turkey, which a week previously had stalked and gobbled with pride about his own yard, he remarked,—for his mind reverted to the trick he had put upon Fanny with great complacency,—that never, during the whole course of his experience, had he so cleverly handled a difficult affair as he had that day. The lady to whom he addressed himself might have considered, in the way of the profession, that he alluded to some case of amputation at the hip-joint, or other similar operation equally delicate, as she replied by begging him not to inform her of it that night, as she was already almost overcome with the nervous excitement consequent on the events of the afternoon.

“Indeed!” the doctor exclaimed, raising his eyes. “What has occurred? No patient dead, I hope?”

“Nothing of the kind,” returned the lady; “only that James Woodruff has been talking again in such an extraordinary manner, that I feel quite faint even now with it. Do reach me that bottle, dear. Really, Rowel, I tell you again, that if he cannot be set at liberty very soon, I shall be compelled to keep out of the way altogether. I will confine myself to this end of the house, and never go within reach of him any more. What a horrible creature he is!”

“He has not injured you, has he?” the doctor again inquired, as he involuntarily run his fore-finger round the inner front of his neckerchief.

“Of course not—how could he? But then that long hair gives him such a frightful look, and at the same time, whenever he can catch a glimpse of me, he always begs and prays me to prevail on you to set him free. I am sure I wonder you keep him, even for my sake; and, besides that, the man seems sensible enough, and always has been, if I am to judge by his conversation.”

“Ah!—what—again?” exclaimed her husband, interrupting her. “How many more times shall I have to repeat to you, that a madman, when under restraint, cannot, in some particular cases, be in the most remote degree depended upon, though his observations be apparently as intelligent and sane as yours or mine?”

“I remember you have said so,” remarked Mrs. Rowel; “but it seems very singular.”

“It may appear very singular in your opinion, my dear, because you are not expected to possess the same erudition and extensive knowledge that a professional man does in these things; though, with deference, my dear, common experience and observation might by this time have convinced you that my theory is perfectly correct. With these unhappy people you should believe neither your eyes nor your ears; for if you do, it is a hundred to one but that some of them, at one time or another, will persuade you that they are perfectly sane and well, when, were they to be freed from restrain, they would tear you in pieces the very next instant.”

Mrs. Rowel looked somewhat disconcerted, and at a loss to meet her husband in a region so scientific that neither seeing nor hearing were of any use; though secretly she could not but wonder, if neither eyes nor ears were to be trusted, by what superior faculty, what divining-rod of intellect, a patient's madness was to be ascertained. Her doubts were not wholly overturned by the ploughshare of the doctor's logic, and therefore she very naturally, though with considerable show of diffidence, stuck pertinaciously to her old opinion.

Her husband felt vexed,—and especially as he wished to impose upon her understanding,—that with all his powers of speech, and his assumption of profound knowledge, he could not now, any more than hitherto, succeed in converting her to the faith which he himself pretended so devoutly to hold, that lunatics sometimes could not be known by their conversation, and that the individual James Woodruff, in particular, who was the subject of their conversation, was actually as mad as a March hare, notwithstanding the actions and appearances, undeviating and regular, which in his case so obstinately forced upon Mrs. Rowel the private conviction that he was quite as sound in intellect as any other subject within the King's dominions. Nevertheless the doctor stifled the feelings of petulant resentment which were rising in his bosom, and satisfied himself simply by assuring his good, though somewhat perverse lady, that it was no very unusual thing for a certain description of lunatics to maintain their own sanity by arguments which, in any other case, would be considered very excellent; though, with experienced professional men, that very fact went farther in support of their derangement than almost any other that could be brought to bear.

“Whenever,” continued the doctor, with some degree of warmth, “whenever I meet with a patient,—never mind whether he is under medical treatment or not,—a patient who endeavours by argument and proof to show me that he is compos mentis,—who seeks for evidence, as it were, in his own mind to substantiate the sanity of that very mind,—that is, a man who appeals for proof to the very thing to be itself proved,—who tests the mind by the mind,—when I meet with a patient of that description, it seems to imply a kind of doubt and distrust of his own intellect, and I set him down, in spite of what anybody can say to the contrary, as non compos mentis, and a proper subject on whom to issue a writ ideota inquirendo vel examinando.”

“I cannot argue with you like that, Frank,” observed the doctor's wife; “but do you mean to say that a man cannot himself tell whether he is mad,—and that nobody else, by what they see and hear, can tell either?”

“I do!” exclaimed Rowel. “I contend that numberless instances exist of latent mental derangement, which are totally unknown both to the insane themselves, and to those persons who are about them.”

“Then how do you know it?” asked the lady.

“From the very nature of things, my dear,” Mr. Rowel replied. “Time was when verdicts of felo de se were returned in cases of self-destruction; but now every twopenny shopkeeper is wise enough to know, that the very act of self-murder itself is evidence of mental derangement.”

“But what has this to do with the question?” demanded Mrs. Rowel.

“It has this to do with it,” continued her husband, “that neither you, nor I, nor anybody else, however wise we may think ourselves, can know for a certainty, positively and conclusively, whether we are mad or not.”

“Then do you mean to say that I am mad?”

“I mean to say this, my dear, that for aught you know to the contrary, you may be.”

“Come, that is foolish, Frank. But you do not think so, do you?”

“Think!—I think nothing about it,” replied Rowel; “only, as you seem to believe that such a lunatic as James Woodruff is very much in his senses, it might be supposed you had a bit of a slate loose yourself.”

“Oh, I am sure I have not!” tartly resumed the lady. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying such a thing.”

“No, no!—I do not say any such thing, by any means. The case of Woodruff is certainly, in one sense, the most singular I ever knew, and to me, in my situation, a peculiarly painful one; but what then?—what can I do?”

“Why, you know, my dear,” replied Mrs. Rowel, in a deprecatory tone of voice, “that you do manage his property, after all. The man is right enough as far as that goes?”

“Right enough, truly—I do. But how do I? Is not the trouble as great as the profit? I keep it altogether where it was for him,—prevent him from squandering it in his mad fits, as he was about to do at the time I caused him to be placed in confinement,—keep him out of harm's way,—clothe him,—feed him,—medicine,—attendance,—everything,—and not a single item put down against his estate for all this. What was I to do, do you suppose? Was it likely that I should stand quietly by, and see all that he had himself, and all that my sister Frances left him, go to rack and ruin, waste and destruction, as if it were of no more value than an old song?”

“But what was it that he was doing?” asked Mrs. Rowel; “for I am sure I could never find out.”

“He was doing nothing actually,” said the doctor. “But what should you have thought of me, if I had kept my hands in my pockets until the mischief was past before I attempted to interfere? It was what I foresaw he intended to do that caused me to step between. Was not he going to pull that good new house to pieces, for the sake of patching up the old one with its materials? The man must have been stark raving mad to have thought of such a thing, and everybody would have said so.”

“I should not have said so,” observed the lady; “though there is nothing wonderful about that, as you have told me that I may be mad too. But it was always my opinion that the old family house was worth ten of the other, if it had but the same fire-grates and chimney-pieces put in it.”

“The fact is,” replied he, “you were all mad together about that tumble-down crazy concern, merely because it was the old house; and I am very glad I put a stop to it when I did, and in the manner I did, though I think he knows better now, mad as he is at present. To tell you the truth, my dear,” and the doctor lowered his voice to a more serious and impressive tone, “I do not think he cares much, or perhaps not anything at all, about it. His liberty seems to be the principal thing with him. Do you know, he offered this evening to make the whole property over to me as a free gift, if I would let him out.”

“Did he indeed!” exclaimed the lady, as tears of pity swam in her eyes. “Poor fellow!—poor fellow!”

“Why, poor fellow? I didn't prompt him to say what he did. Besides, I would not take it. How dare I let him out? His gift would be good for nothing to me, being void at law. I cannot let him out. And even if I had ever dreamed of trying such a hazardous experiment, it would, under present circumstances, be impossible.”

“But why impossible, Frank?” asked Mrs. Rowel.

Frank Rowel began to imagine, from the turn which his wife appeared inclined to take in this business, that the relation of his interview with Fanny, which had discovered to him so unexpectedly the person of James Woodruff's daughter, and his own niece, would not materially profit him in the eyes of that lady; and therefore, although he had at first intended to make it known to her, he for the present forbore, and contented himself by assuring her how exceedingly lucky it was that, for her own sake, she had some one about her whose knowledge was not so soon set aside, and whose feelings of compassion were not so easily excited as her own; or otherwise it would inevitably come about that a whole establishment of lunatics would some day or other, out of pure kindness, be let loose to run rampant over and affright the whole country-side.

“Then James is to remain there?” questioned the lady.

“I see no chance for him,” was the reply; “everything is against him. He must be confined for life.”

Mrs. Rowel sighed, looked at her husband, then at the decanter of sherry which stood on the table, then smiled significantly, and then added in a half-jesting tone, though with a very serious and fixed intention, “I 'll take a glass of wine with you, my dear.”

And so she did, and several others after it.

In fact, though I abhor anything that might be supposed to touch on scandal, Mrs. Rowel liked sherry.