'Then why don't you shut him up? we pay enough for county institutions,
damn 'em. But thou'd rather drag him about to excite charity - of course.
Ay, I know thee.'
Now, this gentleman had various endearing appellations among his
intimate friends. By some he was called 'a country gentleman of the true
school,' by some 'a fine old country gentleman,' by some 'a sporting
gentleman,' by some 'a thorough-bred Englishman,' by some 'a genuine
John Bull;' but they all agreed in one respect, and that was, that it
was a pity there were not more like him, and that because there were
not, the country was going to rack and ruin every day. He was in the
commission of the peace, and could write his name almost legibly; but
his greatest qualifications were, that he was more severe with poachers,
was a better shot, a harder rider, had better horses, kept better dogs,
could eat more solid food, drink more strong wine, go to bed every night
more drunk and get up every morning more sober, than any man in the
county. In knowledge of horseflesh he was almost equal to a farrier, in
stable learning he surpassed his own head groom, and in gluttony not
a pig on his estate was a match for him. He had no seat in Parliament
himself, but he was extremely patriotic, and usually drove his voters
up to the poll with his own hands. He was warmly attached to church
and state, and never appointed to the living in his gift any but a
three-bottle man and a first-rate fox-hunter. He mistrusted the honesty
of all poor people who could read and write, and had a secret jealousy
of his own wife (a young lady whom he had married for what his friends
called 'the good old English reason,' that her father's property
adjoined his own) for possessing those accomplishments in a greater
degree than himself. In short, Barnaby being an idiot, and Grip a
creature of mere brute instinct, it would be very hard to say what this
gentleman was.
He rode up to the door of a handsome house approached by a great flight
of steps, where a man was waiting to take his horse, and led the way
into a large hall, which, spacious as it was, was tainted with the
fumes of last night's stale debauch. Greatcoats, riding-whips, bridles,
top-boots, spurs, and such gear, were strewn about on all sides, and
formed, with some huge stags' antlers, and a few portraits of dogs and
horses, its principal embellishments.
Throwing himself into a great chair (in which, by the bye, he often
snored away the night, when he had been, according to his admirers, a
finer country gentleman than usual) he bade the man to tell his mistress
to come down: and presently there appeared, a little flurried, as it
seemed, by the unwonted summons, a lady much younger than himself, who
had the appearance of being in delicate health, and not too happy.
'Here! Thou'st no delight in following the hounds as an Englishwoman
should have,' said the gentleman. 'See to this here. That'll please thee
perhaps.'
The lady smiled, sat down at a little distance from him, and glanced at
Barnaby with a look of pity.
'He's an idiot, the woman says,' observed the gentleman, shaking his
head; 'I don't believe it.'
'Are you his mother?' asked the lady.
She answered yes.
'What's the use of asking HER?' said the gentleman, thrusting his hands
into his breeches pockets. 'She'll tell thee so, of course. Most likely
he's hired, at so much a day. There. Get on. Make him do something.'
Grip having by this time recovered his urbanity, condescended, at
Barnaby's solicitation, to repeat his various phrases of speech, and to
go through the whole of his performances with the utmost success. The
corks, and the never say die, afforded the gentleman so much delight
that he demanded the repetition of this part of the entertainment, until
Grip got into his basket, and positively refused to say another word,
good or bad. The lady too, was much amused with him; and the closing
point of his obstinacy so delighted her husband that he burst into a
roar of laughter, and demanded his price.
Barnaby looked as though he didn't understand his meaning. Probably he
did not.
'His price,' said the gentleman, rattling the money in his pockets,
'what dost want for him? How much?'
'He's not to be sold,' replied Barnaby, shutting up the basket in a
great hurry, and throwing the strap over his shoulder. 'Mother, come
away.'
'Thou seest how much of an idiot he is, book-learner,' said the
gentleman, looking scornfully at his wife. 'He can make a bargain. What
dost want for him, old woman?'
'He is my son's constant companion,' said the widow. 'He is not to be
sold, sir, indeed.'
'Not to be sold!' cried the gentleman, growing ten times redder,
hoarser, and louder than before. 'Not to be sold!'
'Indeed no,' she answered. 'We have never thought of parting with him,
sir, I do assure you.'
He was evidently about to make a very passionate retort, when a few
murmured words from his wife happening to catch his ear, he turned
sharply round, and said, 'Eh? What?'
'We can hardly expect them to sell the bird, against their own desire,'
she faltered. 'If they prefer to keep him - '
'Prefer to keep him!' he echoed. 'These people, who go tramping about
the country a-pilfering and vagabondising on all hands, prefer to keep
a bird, when a landed proprietor and a justice asks his price! That old
woman's been to school. I know she has. Don't tell me no,' he roared to
the widow, 'I say, yes.'
Barnaby's mother pleaded guilty to the accusation, and hoped there was
no harm in it.
'No harm!' said the gentleman. 'No. No harm. No harm, ye old rebel, not
a bit of harm. If my clerk was here, I'd set ye in the stocks, I would,
or lay ye in jail for prowling up and down, on the look-out for petty
larcenies, ye limb of a gipsy. Here, Simon, put these pilferers out,
shove 'em into the road, out with 'em! Ye don't want to sell the bird,
ye that come here to beg, don't ye? If they an't out in double-quick,
set the dogs upon 'em!'
They waited for no further dismissal, but fled precipitately, leaving
the gentleman to storm away by himself (for the poor lady had already
retreated), and making a great many vain attempts to silence Grip, who,
excited by the noise, drew corks enough for a city feast as they hurried
down the avenue, and appeared to congratulate himself beyond measure on
having been the cause of the disturbance. When they had nearly reached
the lodge, another servant, emerging from the shrubbery, feigned to
be very active in ordering them off, but this man put a crown into the
widow's hand, and whispering that his lady sent it, thrust them gently
from the gate.
This incident only suggested to the widow's mind, when they halted at
an alehouse some miles further on, and heard the justice's character
as given by his friends, that perhaps something more than capacity of
stomach and tastes for the kennel and the stable, were required to form
either a perfect country gentleman, a thoroughbred Englishman, or
a genuine John Bull; and that possibly the terms were sometimes
misappropriated, not to say disgraced.
...
American Notes
At South Boston, as it is called, in a situation excellently adapted for
the purpose, several charitable institutions are clustered together. One of
these is the State Hospital for the insane; admirably conducted on those
enlightened principles of conciliation and kindness, which twenty years ago
would have been worse than heretical, and which have been acted upon with
so much success in our own pauper asylum at Hanwell. "Evince a desire to
show some confidence, and repose some trust, even in mad people," said the
resident physician, as we walked along the galleries, his patients flocking
round us unrestrained. Of those who deny or doubt the wisdom of this maxim
after witnessing its effects, if there be such people still alive, I can
only say that I hope I may never be summoned as a Juryman on a Commission
of Lunacy whereof they are the subjects; for I should certainly find them
out of their senses, on such evidence alone.
Each ward in this institution is shaped like a long gallery or hall, with
the dormitories of the patients opening from it on either hand. Here they
work, read, play at skittles, and other games; and, when the weather does
not admit of their taking exercise out of doors, pass the day together. In
one of these rooms, seated calmly, and quite as a matter of course, among a
throng of madwomen, black and white, were the physician's wife and another
lady, with a couple of children. These ladies were graceful and handsome;
and it was not difficult to perceive, at a glance, that even their presence
there had a highly beneficial influence on the patients who were grouped
about them.
Leaning her head against the chimney-piece, with a great assumption of
dignity and refinement of manner, sat an elderly female, in as many scraps
of finery as Madge Wildfire herself. Her head in particular was so strewn
with scraps of gauze and cotton and bits of paper, and had so many queer
odds and ends stuck all about it, that it looked like a bird's nest. She
was radiant with imaginary jewels; wore a rich pair of undoubted gold
spectacles; and gracefully dropped upon her lap, as we approached, a very
old, greasy newspaper, in which I dare say [-53-] she had been reading
an account of her own presentation at some Foreign Court.
I have been thus particular in describing her, because she will serve to
exemplify the physician's manner of acquiring and retaining the confidence
of his patients.
"This," he said aloud, taking me by the hand, and advancing to the
fantastic figure with great politeness - not raising her suspicions by
the
slightest look or whisper, or any kind of aside, to me: "this lady is the
hostess of this mansion, sir. It belongs to her. Nobody else has anything
whatever to do with it. It is a large establishment, as you see, and
requires a great number of attendants. She lives, you observe, in the very
first style. She is kind enough to receive my visits, and to permit my wife
and family to reside here; for which, it is hardly necessary to say, we are
much indebted to her. She is exceedingly courteous, you perceive," - on
this hint she bowed condescendingly, - " and will permit me to have the
pleasure of introducing you: a gentleman from England, ma'am: newly arrived
from England, after a very tempestuous passage: Mr. Dickens - the lady of
the house!"
We exchanged the most dignified salutations with profound gravity and
respect, and so went on. The rest of the madwomen seemed to understand the
joke perfectly (not only in this case, but in all the others, except their
own), and to be highly amused by it. The nature of their several kinds of
insanity was made known to me in the same way, and we left each of them in
high good humour. Not only is a thorough confidence established, by these
means, between physician and patient, in respect of the nature and extent
of their hallucinations, but it is easy to understand that opportunities
are afforded for seizing any moment of reason, to startle them by placing
their own delusion before them in its most incongruous and ridiculous
light.
Every patient in this asylum sits down to dinner every day with a knife and
fork; and in the midst of them sits the gentleman, [-54-] whose manner of
dealing with his charges I have just described. At every meal, moral
influence alone restrains the more violent among them from cutting the
throats of the rest; but the effect of that influence is reduced to an
absolute certainty, and is found, even as a means of restraint, to say
nothing of it as a means of cure, a hundred times more efficacious than all
the strait-waistcoats, fetters, and handcuffs that ignorance, prejudice,
and cruelty have manufactured since the creation of the world.
In the labour department, every patient is as freely trusted with the tools
of his trade as if he were a sane man. In the garden, and on the farm, they
work with spades, rakes, and hoes. For amusement, they walk, run, fish,
paint, read, and ride out to take the air in carriages provided for the
purpose. They have among themselves a sewing society to make clothes for
the poor, which holds meetings, passes resolutions, never comes to
fisticuffs or bowie-knives, as sane assemblies have been known to do
elsewhere; and conducts all its proceedings with the greatest decorum. The
irritability, which would otherwise be expended on their own flesh,
clothes, and furniture, is dissipated in these pursuits. They are
cheerful, tranquil, and healthy.
Once a week they have a ball, in which the Doctor and his family, with all
the nurses and attendants, take an active part. Dances and marches are
performed alternately, to the enlivening strains of a piano; and now and
then some gentleman or lady (whose proficiency has been previously
ascertained) obliges the company with a song; nor does it ever degenerate,
at a tender crisis, into a screech or a howl; wherein, I must confess, I
should have thought the danger lay. At an early hour they all meet together
for these festive purposes; at eight o'clock refreshments are served; and
at nine they separate.
Immense politeness and good-breeding are observed throughout. They all take
their tone from the Doctor; and he moves a very Chesterfield among the
company. Like other assemblies, these entertainments afford a fruitful
topic of conversation among [-55-] the ladies for some days; and the
gentlemen are so anxious to shine on these occasions, that they have been
sometimes found "practicing their steps" in private, to cut a more
distinguished figure in the dance.
It is obvious that one great feature of this system is the inculcation and
encouragement, even among such unhappy persons, of a decent self-respect.
Something of the same spirit pervades all the Institutions at South Boston.