“And when his friend, the surgeon, told him 'Yes'--told him 'Yes' many times and in many ways--still he seemed loath to believe it. When he had finished, to the last scrap of the potato skin and the last morsel of the bread crust and the last drop in the glass, he bowed his head and outspread his hands before him as though returning thanks for a glorious benefaction. “Perhaps I should have told you that this took place late in the afternoon. We waited a little while after that, and then just before sunset we took him outdoors into a little shabby garden on the asylum grounds; and we freed his eyes and we unmuffled his ears. And then we drew back from him a distance and watched him to see what he would do. “For a little while he did nothing except stand in his tracks, transfixed and transfigured. He saw the sky and the sunlight and the earth and the grass and the shadows upon the earth and the trees and the flowers that were about him--saw them literally in a celestial vision; and he smelled the good wholesome smells of the earth, and the scents of the struggling, straggling flowers in the ill-kept flower beds, and the scents of the green things growing there too. “And just then, as though it had known and had been inspired to choose this instant for bringing to him yet another sensation, a thrush--a common brown thrush--began singing in an elm tree almost directly above him. Of course it was merely a coincidence that a thrush should begin singing then and there. Thrushes are plentiful enough about the country in this climate at this season of the year. Central Park is full of them, sometimes. Most of us scarcely notice them, or their singing either. But, you see, with this man it was different. He literally was undergoing re-creation, re-incarnation, resurrection. Call it what you please. It was one of those three things. In a way of speaking it was all three of them. “At the first note of music from the bird he gave a quick start, and then he threw back his head and uplifted his face; and quite near at hand he saw the little rusty-coloured chap, singing away there, with its speckled throat feathers rising and falling, and he heard the sounds that poured from the thrush's open beak. And as he looked and listened he put his hands to his breast as though something were hurting him there. He didn't move until the bird had fluttered away. Nor did we move either. “Then he turned and came stumbling and reeling toward us, literally drunk with joy. His intoxication of ecstasy thickened his tongue and choked him until he, at first, could not speak to us. After a bit, though, the words came outpouring from his lips. “'Did you hear that?' he cried out. 'Did you hear it? Do you smell the earth and the flowers? And the sky--I have seen it! I can see it now. Oh, hasn't God been good to us to give us all this? Oh, hasn't He been good to me?'