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That unmistakable mood or note that I hear from Hanwell, I hear also from half the chairs of science and seats of learning to-day; and most of the mad doctors are mad doctors in more senses than one. They all have exactly that combination we have noted: the combination of an expansive and exhaustive reason with a contracted common sense.
In truth a more uninteresting country than this part of the island I have seldom seen, and, as L. remarked, very few weeks of Buitenzorg would fill Hanwell! One incident, however, I should not omit to mention: a grand review of the troops was held during our stay here, in the Palace Park, and having obtained cards, we were admitted to view the proceedings.
And I remember that as I lifted my head to listen, my eye caught an omnibus on which was written "Hanwell." I said to him, "Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success.
He feels as if he lived at the Land's-End, or had emigrated to the back woods of America. All the world goes at a gallop, and he creeps. Finally, he is removed to Hanwell, and endeavours to persuade Dr Conolly that he is one of Stephenson's engines, and goes hissing and spurting in fierce imitation of Rapid or Infernal.
To my ear every line is different; there is as much variation in Charles V.'s soliloquy as in Hamlet's; but be this as it may, it is not unworthy of the inmates of Hanwell for critics to inveigh against la, rime pleine, that which is instinctive in the language as accent in ours, that which is the very genius of the language.
Think of that, parents, when you listen to the engaging nonsense of your little ones think of the child in Hanwell wards! Remember how narrow a line separates innocence from idiocy; so narrow a line that the words were once synonymous! Then there was the infirmary full of occupants on that merry New Year's night.
Yes, I know, 'Hell has no fury like a woman scorned'; but did he know, Congreve, or whoever it was, what a poor contemptible thing that fury is? A little outburst of insanity, such as scores of miserable wretches experience any day at Hanwell, and are strapped down, or thrust into a padded room, have cold water dashed over them, until the fit is passed.
At this rate he went on for a considerable space, till being apprehended for a robbery of a man on Hanwell Green, from whom he took but ten shillings, he was shortly after convicted; and having no friends, from that time he laid aside all hope of life.
The explanation does explain, though not, of course, so completely as the madman's. But the point here is that the normal human mind not only objects to both, but feels to both the same objection. Its approximate statement is that if the man in Hanwell is the real God, he is not much of a god. And, similarly, if the cosmos of the materialist is the real cosmos, it is not much of a cosmos.
It would be much truer to say that a man will certainly fail because he believes in himself. Complete self-confidence is not merely a sin; complete self-confidence is a weakness. Believing utterly in one's self is a hysterical and superstitious belief like believing in Joanna Southcote: the man who has it has 'Hanwell' written on his face as plain as it is written on that omnibus."
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