Many a plunging
maniac, ironed to the floor of a cell, believes himself the Goddess of
Liberty careering gaily through the Ten Commandments in a chariot of
gold. Of your own sanity and identity you have no evidence that is any
better than he has of his. More accurately, I have none of mine; for
anything I know, you do not exist, nor any one of all the things with
which I think myself familiarly conscious. All may be fictions of my
disordered imagination. I really know of but one reason for doubting
that I am an inmate of an asylum for the insane--namely, the probability
that there is nowhere any such thing as an asylum for the insane.
This kind of speculation has charms that get a good neck-hold upon
attention. For example, if I am really a lunatic, and the persons and
things that I seem to see about me have no objective existence, what an
ingenious though disordered imagination I must have! What a clever
_coup_ it was to invent Mr. Rockefeller and clothe him with the
attribute of permanence! With what amusing qualities I have endowed my
laird of Skibo, philanthropist.
Pages:
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68