I always had a desire to know asylum life more thoroughly - a desire to be convinced that the most helpless of God's creatures, the insane, were cared for kindly and properly.

'VERY WELL,' I SAID ANGRILY, 'START THE MAN, AND I'LL START THE SAME DAY FOR SOME OTHER NEWSPAPER AND BEAT HIM.'

I had, toward the last, been shut off from all visitors, and so when the lawyer, Peter A. Hendricks, came and told me that friends of mine were willing to take charge of me if I would rather be with them than in the asylum, I was only too glad to give my consent

I always had a desire to know asylum life more thoroughly - a desire to be convinced that the most helpless of God's creatures, the insane, were cared for kindly and properly.

People in the world can never imagine the length of days to those in asylums. They seemed never ending, and we welcomed any event that might give us something to think about as well as talk of.

'IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO DO IT,' WAS THE TERRIBLE VERDICT. 'IN THE FIRST PLACE YOU ARE A WOMAN AND WOULD NEED A PROTECTOR, AND EVEN IF IT WERE POSSIBLE FOR YOU TO TRAVEL ALONE YOU WOULD NEED TO CARRY SO MUCH BAGGAGE THAT IT WOULD DETAIN YOU IN MAKING RAPID CHANGES. BESIDES YOU SPEAK NOTHING BUT ENGLISH, SO THERE IS NO USE TALKING ABOUT IT; NO ONE BUT A MAN CAN DO THIS.'

I had never been near insane persons before in my life, and had not the faintest idea of what their actions were like