A Mind That Found Itself

ed out, and with others carried me into the house. Naturally that dinner was permanently interrupted. A mattress was placed on the floor of the dining room and I on that, suffering intensely. I said

said, "My back is broken!"-raising m

e first object to engage my attention and stir my imagination was a man who appeared outside my window and placed in position several heavy iron bars. These were, it seems, thought necessary for my protection, but at that time no such idea occurred to me. My mind was in a delusional state, ready and ea

tive association of mad ideas convinced me that I was being "sweated"-another police term which I had often seen in the newspapers. I inferred that this third-degree sweating process was being inflicted in order to extort some kind of a confession, though what my captors wished me to confess I could not for my life imagine. As I was really in a state of delirium, with high fever, I had an insatiable thirst. The only liquids given me were hot

ow and then I would recognize the subdued voice of a friend; now and then I would hear the voices of some I believed were not friends. All these referred to me and uttered what

the water in the hold should extinguish the fires. How had this peril overtaken us? Simply enough: During the night I had in some way-a way still unknown to me-opened a porthole below the water-line; and those in charge of the vessel seemed powerless to close it. Every now and then I could hear parts of the ship give way under the strain. I could hear the air hiss and whistle spitefully under the resistless impact of the invading waters; I could hear the crash

e hospital were soon running along the deck of my ocean liner, carrying passengers from the places of peril to what seemed place

the building, the summoning whistle conveyed to my mind the idea of the exhaustion of air in a ship-compartment, and the opening and shutting of the elevator door completed the illusion of a ship fast going to pieces. But the ship my mind was on neve

vious reasons, were shaved from shin to calf. This unusual tonsorial operation I read for a sign of degradation-associating it with what I had heard of the treatment of murderers and with similar customs in barbarous cou

se. Those familiar with Yale customs know that the Harvard baseball game is one of the chief events of the commencement season. Headed by brass bands, all the classes whose reunions fall in the same year march to the Yale Athletic Field to see the game and renew their youth-using up as much vigor in one delirious day as would insure a ripe old age if less prodigal

y degrees; each deserves its own unique place, even as a Saint's Day in the calendar of an olden Span

, loathed the very thought that a Yale man should so disgrace his Alma Mater. And when they approached the hospital on their way to the Athletic Field, I concluded that it was their intention to take me from my bed, drag me to the lawn, and there tear me limb from limb. Few incidents during my unhappiest years are more vividly or circumstantially impressed upon my memory. The