Found in a private casebook, never submitted.
May 1772
London
I did not attend in the manner of a spectator, nor was that ever my intention.
I was prevailed upon, through family channels and with some delicacy, to make the visit, upon the understanding that my professional opinion might be of service. I had, until that time, confined my acquaintance with affections of the mind to distant observation, and never to one so nearly allied to myself.
The house stands in a narrow thoroughfare, ill-aired and perpetually damp. The outer door was opened without inquiry as to my purpose, the porter regarding me with the incurious eye of one long habituated to visitors. The passage within was close and offensive with stale straw, urine, and that sour vapour which proceeds from bodies insufficiently washed and long confined.
The sound met me first in confusion and only afterward in particular: a constant murmur, broken by abrupt exclamations, laughter without mirth, the rattle of chain, and once a cry so sharp and sudden that it might have been mistaken for some creature brought to heel.
I was received with civility, as one is when one bears proper credentials, even in a place of that character. I was conducted through the galleries in the customary manner. Iron grates admitted the light in narrow bars upon the floor. In certain chambers the inhabitants were restrained at wrist or ankle; in others they paced with a perseverance that appeared mechanical. In one, a woman knelt and addressed the wall with solemn industry. No one corrected her.
No concealment was attempted. The arrangement seemed accounted natural.
My brother was admitted under our father’s name alone, without reference to connexion. This was insisted upon, and I did not contest it.
He was not restrained.
This I observed at once, and not without surprise. He stood near the far wall of his chamber, beneath a high window where the light fell strongest. The air about him was thick with motes turning in the beam. His frame was diminished, yet his carriage otherwise unchanged. He held his head inclined upward, as though attending to some influence beyond the room.
Upon hearing his name pronounced, he turned and acknowledged me without hesitation. His recognition was immediate, his manner composed. He enquired after several families of my practice with a precision of recollection that admitted no doubt as to its correctness.
In examination, I found his pulse regular, his skin cool, and his discourse coherent. His replies were direct, and his attention, though fixed, was not wandering.
When I questioned him concerning the opinion attributed to him by the attendants, namely that he conceived himself to be a seed or planted thing, he corrected the expression without delay.
“I am not planted,” he said. “I was set.”
He spoke the word distinctly.
He proceeded, without agitation, to discourse upon orientation, and of the error committed when objects are placed without due regard to the direction of their proper growth. He described light as a species of pressure, and distance as a strain imposed upon the faculties. He spoke of ceilings as impediments, of corners as distortions, and of the discomfort occasioned when one is set contrary to one’s proper line.
His discourse, though erroneous in conclusion, was orderly in its construction.
I record this without asserting its verity.
The longer he spoke, the more sensible I became of a fatigue seated behind the eyes, such as attends prolonged upward regard. The chamber seemed lower than at my first entrance. The air close. The window insufficient. I found my own attention drawn, more than once, to the narrow portion of sky visible beyond the grating, though I cannot account for the inclination.
I am not disposed to indulge fancies.
A disturbance arose in the adjoining chamber, the source of which I did not observe. There followed a struggle, the abrupt cessation of sound, and afterward the dragging of weight across boards. My brother did not turn his head. He continued to speak of alignment, and of the unease attendant upon misplacement.
I concluded the interview sooner than I had first intended.
In my written opinion I confined myself to what was strictly requisite: that the subject was calm; that his persuasion was fixed; that his conduct was not violent; and that regularity and limitation of excitation were advisable.
All this was accurate.
What I did not commit to paper was the difficulty I experienced in withdrawing my attention from him; nor the further circumstance that, as I departed the gallery, I observed others similarly inclined, where their restraints permitted, toward the light.
In one chamber a man lay upon his back, eyes open and unblinking, his wrists confined above him. Though he had not the liberty to rise, his face was turned upward in exact conformity with the beam that crossed the ceiling.
The effect was not theatrical.
It was consistent.
I have since found my practice, particularly in the evening hours, attended by an unaccountable unease. Artificial illumination appears insufficient. Enclosed ceilings sit ill with me. I pause beneath open sky longer than is necessary.
I do not return to visit my brother.
I state this as a fact, and not in excuse.