“These lamentable accidents are, of course, always productive of disagreeable feelings in the mind of a practitioner; but never more so than when he has been too confident of the absence of danger. It is questionable, perhaps, whether there are not, in all these cases, certain means of which prudence might avail itself, for the purpose of ascertaining the exact state of the supposed convalescent’s mind, as well as the existence of such intentions in a lunatic as are inconsistent with the safety of other persons, or with the preservation of his own existence. The lunatic may maintain a very guarded silence on these matters so long as they remain quite unsuspected, but is not very well able, in general, to prevent his intentions becoming visible to those who have begun to suspect him. These intentions, too, are generally associated with certain recollections, or certain topics, or certain antipathies or prepossessions, which may be found out and brought into the conversation; in which case, the lunatic can seldom conceal his agitation, his superstitious belief, his anger, or his inly-cherished hope of full revenge. Indeed, he is often in no degree solicitous to conceal his feelings. There cannot be anywhere a more harmless person than Jonathan Martin; his manners are mild, his occupations are of the most peaceful description, his language is strikingly simple and unassuming; but take up the Bible, and you have touched the chord of his insanity; you find that, to destroy the noblest monuments of ancient piety and munificence seems to him a work to which God has especially called him. The effect of possessing a key to the excited feelings of a lunatic is, indeed, always surprising to those unaccustomed to their peculiarities. You walk with a man who seems to delight in the simplest pleasures of a state of innocence; he admires the flowers of the field and the beauty of the sky, or he dwells with satisfaction on the contemplation of whatever is generous and good; nothing can exceed the mildness of his manner: but a single word calculated to rouse a morbid train of ideas, a name, the reminiscence of a place, or any trifling inadvertency, will convert this placid being into a demon; the tones of his voice, his gestures, his countenance, his language, assume, in a moment, the expression of a fiend; and you discover that opportunity alone is wanting to effect some dreadful crime. The discovery of such a design is certainly not always so easy, but wherever suspicion exists, strict superintendence is warranted, or various degrees of restraint must be determined upon, and steadily adhered to.”[61]