The literary impulse took such a hold on me that, when I first sat down to compose a letter, I bluntly refused to stop writing and go to bed when the attendant ordered me to do so.  For over one year this man had seen me mute and meek, and the sudden and startling change from passive obedience to uncompromising independence naturally puzzled him.  He threatened to drag me to my room, but strangely enough decided not to do so.  After half an hour’s futile coaxing, during which time an unwonted supply of blood was drawn to his brain, that surprised organ proved its gratitude by giving birth to a timely and sensible idea.  With an unaccustomed resourcefulness, by cutting off the supply of light at the electric switch, he put the entire ward in darkness.  Secretly I admired the stratagem, but my words on that occasion probably conveyed no idea of the approbation that lurked within me.

I then went to bed, but not to sleep.  The ecstasy of elation made each conscious hour one of rapturous happiness, and my memory knows no day of brighter sunlight than those nights.  The floodgates of thought wide open.  So jealous of each other were the thoughts that they seemed to stumble over one another in their mad rush to present themselves to my re-enthroned ego.

I naturally craved companionship, but there were not many patients whom I cared to talk with.  I did, however, greatly desire to engage the assistant physician in conversation, as he was a man of some education and familiar with the history of my case.  But this man, who had tried to induce me to speak when delusions had tied my tongue, now, when I was at last willing talk, would scarcely condescend to listen; and what seemed to me his studied and ill-disguised avoidance only served to whet my desire to detain him whenever possible.

It was about the second week that my reformative turn of mind became acute.  The ward in which I was confined was well furnished and as homelike as such a place could be, though in justice to my own home I must observe that the resemblance was not great.  About the so-called violent ward I had far less favorable ideas.  Though I had not been subjected to physical abuse during the first fourteen months of my stay here, I had seen unnecessary and often brutal force used by the attendants in managing several so-called violent patients, who, upon their arrival, had been placed in the ward where I was.  I had also heard convincing rumors of rough treatment of irresponsible patients in the violent ward.

At once I determined to conduct a thorough investigation of the institution.  In order that I might have proof that my intended action was deliberate, my first move was to tell one or two fellow-patients that I should soon transgress some rule in such a way as to necessitate my removal to the violent ward.  At first I thought of breaking a few panes of glass; but my purpose was accomplished in another way—­and, indeed, sooner than I had anticipated.  My conservator,