I had under treatment at Pavia, a peasant lad, aged twelve, who composed extremely original musical melodies, and bestowed on his companions in misfortune nicknames which fitted so well that they always kept them. With him was a little old man afflicted with rickets and _pellagra_ who, when asked whether he was happy, replied, like a philosopher of ancient Greece, “All _men_ are happy, even the rich, if they are only willing.” Many of my pupils still remember B----, by turns musician, servant, porter, keeper of a cookshop, tinman, soldier, public letter-writer, but always unfortunate. He left us an autobiography, which, apart from a few orthographical mistakes in spelling, would be quite worth printing; and he asked me for his discharge in terms which, for an uneducated working man, were wanting neither in beauty nor in originality. Not long ago I heard a poor hawker of sponges, when insane, thus conjecture and sum up the cardinal idea of the circulation of life: “We do not die. When the soul is worn out it melts, and is turned into another shape. In fact, when my father had buried a dead mule, we afterwards saw mushrooms growing in great numbers on the same spot, and the potatoes in the same place, which were formerly very small, grew to twice their usual size.” Thus a vulgar mind, enlightened by the energy of mania, stumbles on theories which the greatest thinkers arrive at with difficulty. G. B., a maniac, nephew of a celebrated author, said to me one day, when I hesitated before permitting him to ride a somewhat skittish horse, “No fear, doctor--_similia similibus_.” M. G., a merchant, suffering from melancholia, said to some one who had called him “Count” by mistake, “What count? I have kept plenty of _accounts_--I know no others!” “Why will you not shake hands with me?” I asked Madame M----, a sufferer from moral insanity, one morning, “Are you angry with me?” “_Pallida virgo cupit, rubicunda recusat_,” she replied. Another time I asked her, “Do you hope to leave this establishment soon?” She answered, “I shall leave it when those outside have recovered their reason.” V----, a thief, and insane, made his escape during a walk which had been permitted him. When overtaken and reproached with having betrayed the confidence reposed in him, he replied, “I only wanted to try whether my knees were stiff or not.” B. B., a maniac woman, over seventy years of age, who had lost all her teeth, made obscene remarks. When remonstrated with for using expressions so unbecoming to her age, she said, “Old! old! Why, do you not see that I have not yet cut my teeth?” N. B., who became a poet through insanity, writes with much subtlety, but his verses do not scan. His companion, G. R., once told us that he lengthened the feet on purpose, so that, being well _planted_, they should not be able to escape his memory.[297]