. These trips were not only interesting, but
steadying in effect. I willingly returned to the hospital when my
parole expired. Though several friends expressed surprise at this
willingness to enter again an institution where I had experienced so
many hardships, to me my temporary return was not in the least irksome.
As I had penetrated and conquered the mysteries of that dark side of
life, it no longer held any terrors for me. Nor does it to this day. I
can contemplate the future with a greater degree of complacency than
can some of those whose lot in life has been uniformly fortunate. In
fact, I said at that time that, should my condition ever demand it, I
would again enter a hospital for the insane, quite as willingly as the
average person now enters a hospital for the treatment of bodily
ailments.

It was in this complacent and confident mood, and without any sharp
line of transition, that I again began life in my old world of
companionship and of business.

XXVIII

For the first month of regained freedom I remained at home. These weeks
were interesting. Scarcely a day passed that I did not meet several
former friends and acquaintances who greeted me as one risen from the
dead. And well they might, for my three-year trip among the
worlds--rather than around the world--was suggestive of complete
separation from the everyday life of the multitude. One profound
impression which I received at this time was of the uniform delicacy of
feeling exhibited by my well-wishers. In no instance that I can recall
was a direct reference made to the nature of my recent illness, until I
had first made some remark indicating that I was not averse to
discussing it. There was an evident effort on the part of friends and
acquaintances to avoid a subject which they naturally supposed I wished
to forget. Knowing that their studied avoidance of a delicate subject
was inspired by a thoughtful consideration, rather than a lack of
interest, I invariably forced the conversation along a line calculated
to satisfy a suppressed, but perfectly proper, curiosity which I seldom
failed to detect. My decision to stand on my past and look the future
in the face has, I believe, contributed much to my own happiness, and,
more than anything else, enabled my friends to view my past as I myself
do. By frankly referring to my illness, I put my friends and
acquaintances at ease, and at a stroke rid them of that constraint
which one must feel in the