There is a painter here who (like others one has met outside) believes
himself the one living painter worthy of the name. Indeed, he has
forgotten the names of all the others, and can only despise and abuse
them in the lump. He triumphantly shows you his own work, which consists
of just the kind of crude, half-clever, irresponsible, impressionist
daubs you would expect from an amateur who talks in that way; and you
wonder why on earth he should be in a lunatic asylum, of all places in
the world. And (just as would happen outside, again) some of his
fellow-sufferers take him at his own valuation and believe him a great
genius; some of them want to kick him for an impudent impostor (but that
he is so small); and the majority do not care.
His mania is arson, poor fellow; and when the terrible wish comes over
him to set the place on fire he forgets his artistic conceit, and his
mean, weak, silly face becomes almost grand.
And with the female inmates it is just the same. There is a lady who has
spent twenty years of her life here. Her father was a small country
doctor, called Snogget; her husband an obscure, hard-working curate; and
she is absolutely normal, common-place, and even vulgar.
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