ney just sufficient to purchase a loaf of bread, which he
devoured with a keener appetite than he ever remembered to have felt
throughout the whole previous course of his life.

He then set to work to earn his dinner as he had earned his breakfast;
but instead of twelve, he carried up thirty-six loads of wood. For this
he was paid three times as much as he had received in the morning, and
his dinner was proportionably better and more abundant than his
breakfast.

Thenceforward the business proceeded with the most undeviating
regularity; and the patient at last conceived such a liking for his
occupation, that when all the wood had been carried from the cellar to
the loft, he began of his own voluntary accord to carry it down from the
loft to the cellar, and _vice versa_.

When I saw this lunatic, he had been employed in this manner for about a
year. The morbid character of his madness had completely disappeared,
and his bodily health, previously bad, was now re-established. Count
Pisani informed me that he intended soon to try the experiment of
telling him that there was some reason to doubt the accuracy of the
statements which had caused him to lose the property he once enjoyed;
and that he (the count) was in quest of certain papers which might,
perhaps, prove after all, that he was no changeling, but the rightful
heir to the estates of which he had been deprived. "But," added the
count, when he told me this, "however complete this man's recovery may
at any time seem to be, I will not allow him to quit this place unless
he gives me a solemn promise that he will every day, wheresoever he may
be, carry twelve loads of wood from the cellar to the garret, and twelve
loads down from the garret to the cellar. On that condition alone, shall
I feel any security against the risk of his relapse. Want of occupation
is well known to be one of the most frequent causes of insanity."

Each patient had a separate apartment, and several of these little rooms
were furnished and decorated in the most capricious style, according to
the claims of their occupants. One, who believed himself to be the son
of the Emperor of China, had his walls hung with silk banners, on which
were painted dragons and serpents, while all sorts of ornaments cut out
in gold paper, lay scattered about the room. This lunatic was
good-tempered and cheerful, and Count Pisani had devised a scheme which
he hoped might have some effect in mitigating the delusions und