Besides the sun that lights and warms my inner life, I have been treated
with a kindness and sympathy and consideration by everybody here, from
the governor downward, that fills me with unspeakable gratitude.
Most especially do I feel grateful to my good friends, the doctor, the
chaplain, and the priest--best and kindest of men--each of whom has made
up his mind about everything in heaven and earth and below, and each in
a contrary sense to the two others!
There is but one thing they are neither of them quite cocksure about,
and that is whether I am mad or sane.
And there is one thing--the only one on which they are agreed; namely,
that, mad or sane, I am a great undiscovered genius!
My little sketches, plain or colored, fill them with admiration and
ecstasy. Such boldness and facility and execution, such an overwhelming
fertility in the choice of subjects, such singular realism in the
conception and rendering of past scenes, historical and otherwise, such
astounding knowledge of architecture, character, costume, and what not,
such local color--it is all as if I had really been there to see!
I have the greatest difficulty in keeping my fame from spreading beyond
the walls of the asylum.
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