He recovered, and his character appeared much improved by his severe visitation. He became very much attached to me, and wrote a great deal for me, as my amanuensis. It is worthy of remark, that he remained of choice for a considerable time after his health was re-established, on account of the dread he felt at returning to the place and circumstances where his disease had arisen. It is remarkable also, that after he had been some weeks in private lodgings, assisting his father, in his profession at the Assizes, he, the very night previous to their intended return home, made his escape to America. It is singular, that the first case I had, as an insane patient, after I left York, was his sister. I might select a great number of cases, where I conceive such attention was apparently one principal cause of their recovery, and which I took under my more immediate care on this account, and to whom I devoted much of my time, and made many sacrifices of my comfort and convenience. In order to show the importance of such attention, it will be necessary briefly to explain the description and character of the cases to which I more particularly allude, and that it may appear that these opinions are not new, I shall quote from the first part of this volume already published. I there say, “What is called mania and melancholia, are for the most part effects of the same power being overactive, but overactive in different directions.” If the distressing passions are overactive, we have melancholia,—if the animal propensities, we have furious mania,—and if the exhilirating passions, we have an exuberance of joyous activity. “This is a view not before taken, and will account for much of the difference in the effect from the same cause. This melancholy, or state of depression, caused by the activity of the depressing passions, is to be distinguished from the state of exhaustion and debility, which succeeds some violent paroxysms, or which follows an exhausted state of body and mind from overexertion, and assumes either an apparent melancholy character, from torpor or partial suspension of mind, or is in reality a case of melancholia of the most miserable description, from the exclusive activity of these depressing passions, which are then more likely to become the sole masters of the field of action.” {16} In the former mentioned cases, it appears, that the exciting and depressing passions alternately take on habitudes of action, so that it is still over excitement, but the effects, from its direction being different, are diametrically opposed to each other: in the one case, as I have already said, this nervous energy is employed in exciting into activity the passions which exhilirate: in the other, those which depress us.