Now if a sane
person on February 1st receives a newspaper dated February 14th, be
will be fully justified in thinking something wrong, either with the
publication or with himself. But the shifted calendar which had planted
itself in my mind meant as much to me as the true calendar does to any
sane business man. During the seven hundred and ninety-eight days of
depression I drew countless incorrect deductions. But, such as they
were, they were deductions, and essentially the mental process was not
other than that which takes place in a well-ordered mind.

My gradually increasing vitality, although it increased my fear of
trial, impelled me to take new risks. I began to read not only
newspapers, but also such books as were placed within my reach. Yet had
they not been placed there, I should have gone without them, for I
would never ask even for what I greatly desired and knew I could have
for the asking.

Whatever love of literature I now have dates from this time, when I was
a mental incompetent and confined in an institution. Lying on a shelf
in my room was a book by George Eliot. For several days I cast longing
glances at it and finally plucked up the courage to take little nibbles
now and then. These were so good that I grew bold and at last began
openly to read the book. Its contents at the time made but little
impression on my mind, but I enjoyed it. I read also some of Addison's
essays; and had I been fortunate enough to have made myself familiar
with these earlier in life, I might have been spared the delusion that
I could detect, in many passages, the altering hand of my persecutors.

The friendly attendant, from whom I was now separated, tried to send
his favors after me into my new quarters. At first he came in person to
see me, but the superintendent soon forbade that, and also ordered him
not to communicate with me in any way. It was this disagreement, and
others naturally arising between such a doctor and such an attendant,
that soon brought about the discharge of the latter. But "discharge" is
hardly the word, for he had become disgusted with the institution, and
had remained so long only because of his interest in me. Upon leaving,
he informed the owner that he would soon cause my removal from the
institution. This he did. I left the sanatorium in March, 1901, and
remained for three months in the home of this kindly fellow, who lived
with a grandmother and an aunt in Wallingford, a town not far from New