Of what followed for the next few days I cannot say much; for my head was then so thoroughly weakened that I had almost lost all count of time. It was a very merciful weakness, for without it I do not think that a sensitive brain could have borne a succession of shocks such as I described at the end of my last chapter. There was a very large number of madmen in the place, which was avowedly regarded as an asylum chiefly for 'incurables,' whence I conclude that it was thought convenient in my case to take the extremest view of matters at once. So little was I myself able to realise that resort could have been had with me to such a step as this, that, strange as it may seem, some months passed before I knew that I was the inmate of an asylum. I thought, in the dazed state of trance in which I contrived to exist from hour to hour, that I was in some sort of establishment devoted to nervous patients, whence I should be removed in due course of time; though, in the vague and dreamy speculations which occupied my days, I was wont inwardly to wonder what possible effect for good those broken nerves of mine could derive from constant association with a variety of people who were 'nervous' to such a very marked degree. Their ailments used at times to cause me much inward perplexity. One of them used to rush wildly about the passages of the house-generally with a file of old numbers of the 'Times' under his arm, in all sorts of wonderful costumes, which he was very fond of changing, an Inverness cape and a velvet cap being his garments of choice-shouting out scraps of song in a discordant voice. Another always wished to shake hands with me, and recite medical prescriptions at hazard; at supper, when a number of us sate down at a long table to consume some incredible beef-sandwiches as a wholesome prelude to quiet sleep, he would finish by crossing himself and eating the parsley. Tobacco he was rather fond of eating, too, poor fellow.