drawing a small table towards his bedside, trimmed the light, put on

his spectacles, and composed himself to read. It was a strange

handwriting, and the paper was much soiled and blotted. The title

gave him a sudden start, too; and he could not avoid casting a wistful

glance round the room. Reflecting on the absurdity of giving way to

such feelings, however, he trimmed the light again, and read as

follows: -

A MADMAN'S MANUSCRIPT

Yes! - a madman's! How that word would have struck to my heart,

many years ago! How it would have roused the terror that used to

come upon me sometimes, sending the blood hissing and tingling

through my veins, till the cold dew of fear stood in large drops upon

my skin, and my knees knocked together with fright! I like it now

though. It's a fine name. Show me the monarch whose angry frown

was ever feared like the glare of a madman's eye - whose cord and axe

were ever half so sure as a madman's gripe. Ho! ho! It's a grand thing

to be mad! to be peeped at like a wild lion through the iron bars - to

gnash one's teeth and howl, through the long still night, to the merry

ring of a heavy chain and to roll and twine among the straw,

transported with such brave music. Hurrah for the madhouse! Oh, it's

a rare place!

I remember days when I was afraid of being mad; when I used to start

from my sleep, and fall upon my knees, and pray to be spared from

the curse of my race; when I rushed from the sight of merriment or

happiness, to hide myself in some lonely place, and spend the weary

hours in watching the progress of the fever that was to consume my

brain. I knew that madness was mixed up with my very blood, and the

marrow of my bones! that one generation had passed away without

the pestilence appearing among them, and that I was the first in

whom it would revive. I knew it must be so: that so it always had

been, and so it ever would be: and when I cowered in some obscure

corner of a crowded room, and saw men whisper, and point, and turn

their eyes towards me, I knew they were telling each other of the

doomed madman; and I slunk away again to mope in solitude.

'I did this for years; long, long years they were. The nights here are

long sometimes - very long; but they are nothing to the restless nights,

and dreadful dreams I had at that time. It makes me cold to remember

them. Large dusky forms with sly and jeering faces crouched in the

corners of the room, and bent over my bed at night, tempting me to

madness. They told me in low whispers, that the floor of the old house

in which my father died, was stained with his own blood, shed by his

own hand in raging madness. I drove my fingers into my ears, but

they screamed into my head till the room rang with it, that in one

generation before him the madness slumbered, but that his

The Pickwick Papers