Whether
from instinctive recognition of this or not, it has never seemed to me
remarkable that people here should see apparitions of themselves, and
die within the year; it did not strike me as strange when I was told of
persons who had gone mad with no other cause than that of inherited
insanity,--as if, having tried every species of sane activity for two or
three hundred years, a family should take to madness from sheer disgust
with the monotony of being healthy; nor could any case of warped
idiosyncrasy, or any account of half-maniacal genius be instanced that
seemed at all out of keeping. One day I passed a house where a crazy
man, of harmless temper, habitually amused himself with sitting at a
window near the ground, and entering into talk, from between the
half-closed shutters, with any one on the sidewalk who would listen to
him. Such a thing, to be sure, might easily be met with in twenty other
places; but here it seemed natural and fitting. It was not a
preposterous thought, that any number of other men in the neighborhood
might quietly drop into a similar vein of decrepitude, and also attempt
to palm off their disjointed fancies upon the orderly foot-passengers. I
do not by this mean to insinuate any excessive leaning toward mental
derangement on the part of the inhabitants; but it is as if the town,
having lived long enough according to ordinary rules to be justified in
sinking into superannuation, and yet not availing itself of the
privilege, but on the contrary maintaining a life of great activity, had
compensated itself in the persons of a few individuals.
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