XXIV
A few days before Christmas my most galling deprivation was at last removed.
That is, my clothes were restored. These I treated with great respect. Not so
much as a thread did I destroy. Clothes, as is known, have a sobering and
civilizing effect, and from the very moment I was again provided with
presentable outer garments my conduct rapidly improved. The assistant physician
with whom I had been on such variable terms of friendship and enmity even took
me for a sleigh-ride. With this improvement came other privileges or, rather,
the granting of my rights. Late in December I was permitted to send letters to
my conservator. Though some of my blood-curdling letters were confiscated, a few
detailing my experiences were forwarded. The account of my sufferings naturally
distressed my conservator, but, as he said when he next visited me: "What could
I have done to help you? If the men in this State whose business it is to run
these institutions cannot manage you, I am at a loss to know what to do." True,
he could have done little or nothing, for he did not then know the ins and outs
of the baffling situation into which the ties of blood had drawn him.
About the middle of January the doctor in charge of my case went for a
two weeks' vacation. During his absence an older member of the staff
took charge of the violent ward. A man of wider experience and more
liberal ideas than his predecessor, he at once granted me several real
privileges. One day he permitted me to pay a brief visit to the best
ward—the one from which I had been transferred two months earlier. I
thus was able again to mingle with many seemingly normal men, and
though I enjoyed this privilege upon but one occasion, and then only
for a few hours, it gave me intense satisfaction.
Altogether the last six weeks of the fourteen during which I was
confined in the violent ward were comfortable and relatively happy. I
was no longer subjected to physical abuse, though this exemption was
largely due to my own skill in avoiding trouble. I was no longer cold
and hungry. I was allowed a fair amount of outdoor exercise which,
after my close confinement, proved to be a delightful shock. But, above
all, I was again given an adequate supply of stationery and drawing
materials, which became as tinder under the focused rays of my
artistic eagerness. My mechanical investigations were gradually set
aside. Art and literature again held sway. Except when out of doors
taking my allotted exercise, I remained in my room reading, writing, or
drawing. This room of mine soon became a Mecca for the most
irrepressible and loquacious characters in the ward. But I soon
schooled myself to shut my ears to the incoherent prattle of my
unwelcome visitors. Occasionally, some of them would become
obstreperous—perhaps because of my lordly order to leave the room.
Often did they threaten to throttle me; but I ignored the threats, and
they were never carried out. Nor was I afraid that they would be.
Invariably I induced them to obey.
The drawings I produced at this time were crude. For the most part they
consisted of copies of illustrations which I had cut from magazines
that had miraculously found their way into the violent ward. The heads
of men and women interested me most, for I had decided to take up
portraiture. At first I was content to draw in black and white, but I
soon procured some colors and from that time on devoted my attention to
mastering pastel.
In the world of letters I had made little progress. My compositions
were for the most part epistles addressed to relatives and friends and
to those in authority at the hospital. Frequently the letters addressed
to the doctors were sent in sets of three—this to save time, for I was
very busy. The first letter of such a series would contain my request,
couched in friendly and polite terms. To this I would add a postscript,
worded about as follows: "If, after reading this letter, you feel
inclined to refuse my request, please read letter number two." Letter
number two would be severely formal—a business-like repetition of the
request made in letter number one. Again a postscript would advise the
reader to consult letter number three, if the reading of number two had
failed to move him. Letter number three was invariably a brief
philippic in which I would consign the unaccommodating doctor to
oblivion.
In this way I expended part of my prodigious supply of feeling and
energy. But I had also another way of reducing my creative pressure.
Occasionally, from sheer excess of emotion, I would burst into verse,
of a quality not to be doubted. Of that quality the reader shall judge,
for I am going to quote a "creation" written under circumstances which,
to say the least, were adverse. Before writing these lines I had never
attempted verse in my life—barring intentionally inane doggerel. And,
as I now judge these lines, it is probably true that even yet I have
never written a poem. Nevertheless, my involuntary, almost automatic
outburst is at least suggestive of the fervor that was in me. These
fourteen lines were written within thirty minutes of the time I first
conceived the idea; and I present them substantially as they first took
form. From a psychological standpoint at least, I am told, they are not
without interest.
LIGHT
Man's darkest hour is the hour before he's born,
Another is the hour just before the Dawn;
From Darkness unto Life and Light he leaps,
To Life but once,—to Light as oft as God wills he should.
'Tis God's own secret, why
Some live long, and others early die;
For Life depends on Light, and Light on God,
Who hath given to Man the perfect knowledge
That Grim Despair and Sorrow end in Light
And Life everlasting, in realms
Where darkest Darkness becomes Light;
But not the Light Man knows,
Which only is Light
Because God told Man so.
These verses, which breathe religion, were written in an environment
which was anything but religious. With curses of ward-mates ringing in
my ears, some subconscious part of me seemed to force me to write at
its dictation. I was far from being in a pious frame of mind myself,
and the quality of my thought surprised me then—as it does now.
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