PARANOIA. 
A Study of the Evolution of System- 
atized Delusions of Grandeur. 
from the Clinical Records of the Bloomingdale Asylum, New York. 
BY 
William Noyes, M. D., 
Assistant Physician and Pathologist to the McLean 
Asylum, Somerville, Mass., formerly Assistant 
Physician to the Bloomingdale Asylum. 
Hep tint 
FROM 
THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY, 
Baltimore, May, 1889. ©nc morn,a"Perie,0t gate 
of Gden stood,disconsolate? PARANOIA. 
A Study of the Evolution of Systematized 
Delusions of Grandeur. 
From the Clinical Records of the Bloomingdale Asylum, New York. 
WILLIAM NOYES, M. D. 
II. 
In the number of this journal for May, 1888, the writer 
gave an account of the origin and development of sys- 
tematized delusions of grandeur in Mr. G., at that time 
a patient in the Bloomingdale Asylum. He was under 
the immediate charge of the writer at that institution 
up to January, 1889, when he was transferred to the 
New York City Insane Asylum, on Ward's Island, 
where he now is. 
As there have been several interesting developments 
in his mental disease since then, and as it is possible to 
present further examples of his artistic skill, it is pro- 
posed in the present paper to continue the account there 
given, which extended up to about March, 1888. 
Before beginning an account of his mental condition 
during the past year, it will be proper to add some facts 2 
NOYES: 
regarding his early history that were not known at the 
time the first article was written. It is stated that as 
a child he showed some marked peculiarities of man- 
ner, being always fond of odd and fanciful articles 
of dress, and this was especially the case with regard 
to his hats and caps, he being fond of decorating 
these, or of wearing something that was different 
from the other boys. It was always hard for him to 
concentrate his mind on his books, and although 
learning readily, he was lacking in steady application. 
One or two further peculiarities of conduct during 
his life at Bloomingdale have been brought to notice 
by his attendant. His practice after each meal was to 
go out to smoke, remaining out often half an hour or 
more. On his return to the hall he had one method of 
procedure, from which he never varied. He first 
washed his hands in the bath-room; then going to the 
dining room, he filled a glass with water from the 
cooler, and holding this extended in his right hand, he 
would balance himself on one heel and suddenly whirl 
about, always to the right, and would then drink the 
water. The force of his turning was often sufficient 
to throw some of the water out of the glass. 
During the summer a New York artist, who had 
known Mr. G. in Paris, called on him at the asylum, 
and through this gentleman some particulars were 
learned about the patient's art-life abroad. As would 
naturally be expected, the same characteristics were 
noticed by his fellow-students in Paris that have been 
already referred to. 
He was always looked on as exceedingly bright and 
clever, but entirely lacking in application and in the 
ability to finish his work ; in fact he had become 
known as "the unfinished artist," a particularly PARANOIA. 
3 
apt characterization. The water-color sketches which 
the patient showed to this gentleman during the call 
were said by him privately to be of the same general 
character as the patient's earlier work, strong and 
original in conception, but lacking in refinement and 
delicacy of finish. 
Twelve of these water-color sketches are here repro- 
duced, some having been made during the past year, 
and others earlier. The odd and fantastic conceptions 
are sufficiently evident to need no special comment. 
The first one, in the upper left-hand corner, he has 
called Puck's Pleasantries, then comes a French 
Cook and Undine, and last an Imp and Frogs. This 
last one and the next in order, The West Wind, were 
done previous to 1888, the remainder in 1888. The 
remaining three are The Dancing Frog, a second 
Cook, and Pleasure, Time and Youth. The Dancing 
Frog he presented to a fellow-patient, together with 
the following original verses : 
" Hay dai! Hay dai! for the month of May, 
With its flowers and flocks all blithe and gay : 
When the scent of the meadow and smell of the pine, 
For a perfect perfume in a union combine; 
And the lambs and the lassies all skip to the lea, 
To dance in the clover and sport with the bee. 
'Tis a season of song and a season of cheer, 
So tune up the fiddle and tap the fresh beer ; 
And trip to your lassies as long as ye may, 
For youth is for pleasure, so let us be gay." 
The coloring in the last sketch, Pleasure, Time and 
Youth, is particularly good, and the whole makesone 
of the best things that he has done. It will be seen 
that it is allegorical, as is most of his work. Pleasure, 
in the shape of a woman, is leading on the youth, who 
holds a wine-glass in his left hand and a bottle in his 
right, while behind stalks Time, endeavoring to attract 
Youth's attention to the fast-flowing sands in the hour- 
glass. 4 
NOYES: 
The legend attached to this is a good example of 
one of Mr. G.'s numerous puns ; it reads, Life's fitful 
Fille-vers. The Fille refers of course to the maiden in 
the sketch, and if the fille is spoken rapidly with the 
French pronunciation, we get Life's fitful Fevers ! 
Since the appearance of the first article on Mr. G. 
the writer has often been asked if, with the marked 
talent shown by the patient in those sketches, and 
which is equally well shown in these, it would not be 
possible to induce him to do some regular work. All 
attempts, however, to bring this about have been 
without result. The artist referred to above told him 
that he could furnish him with work if he would only 
make the attempt to do it, but the patient's reply, as 
on all former occasions when the subject was brought 
up, was that " The spirit does not move me." Being 
passionately fond of the theatre, he has often been 
offered a theatre-ticket if he would only make some 
small sketch in return, but he prefers to lose the enjoy- 
ment of an evening's pleasure rather than to try to 
force " the spirit." Only once did he ever make a 
sketch under compulsion, as it were, when he made 
for the writer, in exchange for a theatre-ticket, the 
beautiful water-color sketch that serves as a frontis- 
piece for this article,1 and which he called Paradise 
and the Peri, his conception being taken from Moore's 
well-known poem, the sketch representing the first 
two lines : 
" One morn a Peri, at the gate 
Of Eden stood, disconsolate." 
Through the kindness of his family and of one of 
his friends it is possible to present here representations 
of three of his early works, begun and finished before 
his mental disease developed. 
1 The reproduction does this picture but scant justice. PARANOIA. 
5 
The two upper ones in the group of three are water 
colors, both harmonious in design and execution, the 
larger one being especially pleasing. The lower one 
is a landscape in oil, and unfortunately is not a subject 
that can well be represented by a photograph, but the 
original is a very meritorious piece of work, and has 
been highly spoken of by one of the first landscape 
painters in America. 
How great a change has been brought about by his 
mental disease can in no way be better appreciated 
than by comparing the quiet and restrained beauty of 
these works with the group of five water-color sketches 
at the end of the article. In the center is the hideous 
witch. In the upper left-hand corner Puck is disport- 
ing himself with a frog on a toadstool, while opposite 
is Sycorax, the mother of Caliban. In the lower 
right-hand corner is another Witch, and on the other 
The Vampire looks out from her cave of darkness, a 
human skull lying before her, and blood dripping over 
the edge of the rock. 
Mr. G.'s chief occupation during the summer and 
autumn of 1888 was the writing of a book of 200 quarto 
pages, with the following title-page : 
THREADS OF THOUGHT. 
Gleanings gathered from the Greek Gods. 
Siftings from the Sands of the Sighing Sea. 
From Beer-sheba to Dan and on. 
From the Dead Sea to Daylight. 
Alpha and Omega. 
Fret not thy Guise-ard. 
" The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceeding fine." 
" Her 'prentice hand she tried on man, and then she made the 
lassies, 0." 
" Whom the gods "wish to destroy they first make mad." 6 
NOYES: 
Opposite the title-page is a pen-and-ink sketch serving 
as a frontispiece, representing the Goddess of Music 
sitting on the crescent moon, playing on the harp. 
The legend attached, which at first sight appears to 
be an inscription in French, is in reality a pun on the 
musical scale, do, re, me, fa, sol, la, se, do. 
He divided the book into twelve parts, one for each 
month in the year, and at the beginning of each month 
is given the mythological sign of the zodiac, the mem- 
ber of the body for that month, the tribe of Israel to 
which the month is dedicated, the name Christ Jesus, 
one of the Apostles, one of the Holy Stones, one of the 
days of the week, and finally, the name of one of the 
ancient churches. Following this is a description of 
the mythological person to whom the month is sacred, 
after which comes a description of some Greek or 
Roman divinity, from some dictionary of antiquities. 
On the page opposite to this description is inserted 
before each month a pen-and-ink drawing of the 
mythological hero or heroine that the ancients asso- 
ciated with the month. 
Opposite January is Aquarius, and the arrangement 
of the descriptive matter for this month will serve as 
a general example of the arrangement of all the other 
months : 
"Jove. Zodiac. Aquarius. The Waterman. 
A. Member. Legs. Les jambes. Le gambe. 
Month. January. In honor of the god Janus. 
Tribe. Simeon. Hearing with acceptance. 
Christ Jesus. 
Apostle Matthew. Gift of Jehovah. 
Gem. Jasper. 
Day. Monday, sacred to the moon. 
M. Church. Ephesus. PARANOIA. 
7 
Y. Janus. Represented with two heads, and 
called therefrom Biceps-the keeper of all 
gates-also called Matutinus, as opener of 
the day; represented with a key in his left 
hand and a staff in his right. He was also 
called Quirinus because presiding over war. 
Clusius and Patulcius as ' shutter ' and 
' opener ' of gates. He was called Curia- 
tius because he was charged with the care 
of the world. Janus and Jana the solar and 
lunar deities, derived from Oriental names 
of Divinity, Jah, Jao, Jovis, whence Jom or 
Yum, 'the day.' Quirinus is derived from 
the Sabine word curis, 'a spear.' When 
represented four-headed he was denomi- 
nated Quadrifraris, and is identical in ap- 
pearance with the Brahma of India. He 
was like Hermes, the guide of souls from 
Purgatory to Heaven." 
The illustrations preceding the twelve months are 
as follows: Aquarius opposite January; Neptune, 
February; Jason, March; Taurus, April; Pollux, May; 
Infant Hercules, June; Achilles (with the spear), July; 
Pandora, August; Libra, September ; Aegyptus, Octo- 
ber; Apollo (drawing the bow), November ; Bacchante 
before Pan, December. • 
Aegyptus is represented by two drawings, the seated 
Egyptian figure and the sacred bull. A long descrip- 
tion is given of each of these personages, the circum- 
stances of their birth and parentage being given, 
together with their adventures, and the rites with 
which the divinities were worshipped. 
After these mythological characters have been de- 
scribed, Mr. G. has set down in each of the twelve 8 
NOYES: 
divisions of the book his own thoughts on different 
matters, mostly religious, and quotations from the 
Bible, short poems and extracts from poems. Proverbs, 
old saws and original verses are mingled freely together 
without any order or coherence. His remarks on 
religious subjects are often strikingly forcible and 
original, and sometimes remind one of the impassioned 
utterances of a revivalist preacher, and they are not 
seldom poetic in beauty and expression. 
The description of Janus already given is imme- 
diately followed by these quotations : 
" Fortitude is better than biceps for building. 
' He who tholes conquers.' Allen Ramsay. 
' It's good to be sib to siller, but more siller 
When you're sib to ' The King.' " 
And these are followed by a song from " Love's 
Labour's Lost," after which come various remarks on 
religious subjects: 
" Man that is of woman born is of few days and full 
of sorrows. He learns to lisp words the meaning of 
which he knoweth not. He learns the alphabet and 
how to form words. But all this learning to him makes 
him like to the pig fed upon the pod of the pea; a 
higher intelligence first eats the fruit of the soil and 
then, having fed him upon the husk, eats him. And so 
the greater ' Good ' absorbs and refines the lesser lights, 
so a penny dip may eventually become a particle of the 
great and glorious 1 orb of day.' In the beginning was 
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word 
was God. The same was in the beginning with God.- 
St. Luke, 1st c., 1 and 2 v. 
" The infant at its birth is simply the jar (Jah) in 
which is planted the holy seed, or germ of the Word, 
which is to grow and flourish, according to the love and 
devotion bestowed upon it by its parents. Until the PARANOIA. 
9 
child is able to express a thought of its own, it is no 
more than the journal in the which you write the 
occurrences of your daily life, and which must be 
opened and like a flower allowed to bloom in order to 
find color and expression. Few people appreciate the 
mighty magic of the Word, or realize that the thoughts 
we think (which are nothing more than the combina- 
tions of the Word of God) generate either manna or 
rank poison in the hidden tissues of the body, and 
that we transmit this good or evil in a greater or less 
degree to whatever we come in contact with, through 
limb or lung. Like seeks like all the world over. Con- 
sequently, if you are harboring evil in your heart you 
will not only garner what you gather, but the evils of 
your neighbor will fly to you, if your power of evil 
outweighs his; just as the needle is attracted by the 
stronger magnet. 
"Man is the only creature to whom is allotted the 
power of selection or choice ; the dog must always be a 
dog, until evolution passes his spirit into some higher 
form, but man may have the semblance of the god, and 
the heart and habits of the beast, all through his own 
choice and a failure to honor the commands of God. 
The body of the beast cannot hold that which is God- 
like ; it would burn it up, for our God (the God of Love) 
is a consuming fire. If we dishonor the temple of God, 
our mortal bodies, by gathering wrath and holding it, 
we shall be driven out into the abode of some beast (as 
was Nebuchadnezzar) until such time as our sin shall, 
have been purged away. The teachings of Pythagoras 
were just as much inspired by God as those of a broader 
doctrine delivered by Paul. But Pythagoras drove the 
spirits of erring mortals back into the beast and then 
taught us hope of redemption, while the teachings of 10 
NOYES : 
Christ constantly raise the soul of man from the grovel- 
ing worm to the heights of heaven. Forego wrath, let 
go displeasure. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith 
the Lord. Wrath and anger are but the outgrowth of 
a longing for revenge ; they are alchemists concocting 
vengeance in the secret chambers of the heart and 
liver. Turn them out, let them go, they are thieves 
and robbers. Better a dinner of herbs where love 
is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith. If evil 
thoughts come into your heart don't give them house- 
room, purge them out, and above all give them no 
utterance, for if you do it is your endorsement to a 
note of hand signed by your enemy, and ten to one a 
note he will leave you to pay. Never call another 
a liar; make them, if you can, put their statements in 
black and white over their own signature, then they 
will have certified to their own lie; let you add a little 
of the grace of God thereto, and a very good purge 
and cleanser may be evolved therefrom, and society 
thereby relieved of much filth and ugliness. 
"The man who keeps cool 
Needs no compass or rule, 
For his measure or guide, when he builds ; 
For his God in the sky, 
Has him close to his eye, 
And turns back the foe, when He wills. 
" The name you bear is one of God's names; you 
received it through baptism, at the hand of God's 
servant, one of his ministers ; in like manner so did 
your parents before you. It is your bounden duty as 
a Christian to learn to know the full meaning of this 
God-given name, and then to live up to it. If we learn 
to listen to the quiet spirit that ever dwells within the 
house (the one that sings in our heart when we are 
gay and glad and thankful) and follow its teachings, PARANOIA. 
11 
we shall ever find the Temple of God filled with His 
presence, the Shechinah1 that veiled the mercy-seat of 
old ; and the quick spirit of discord, so prone to argu- 
ment and discussion, who is an eavesdropper and a 
listener at corners, and who is ever ready to fly upon 
the tip of our tongue and hail a storm of words, he 
will fly away to some more congenial habitation. 
" Merlin built for King Arthur a royal habitation, 
filled with all the luxury and elegance that wealth or 
art could furnish or devise ; and on the castle's peak, 
spreading its wings to heaven's blue expanse, he placed 
an angel of burnished gold, symbol of the peace and 
love that should reign within the palace walls. To 
this edifice of beauty thronged the knights of King 
Arthur's Round Table, to joust and tourney; and merry 
feast and woman's smiles were not sufficient to keep 
them contented and happy. The devil of unrest, envy, 
and worldly ambition entered their hearts and show- 
ered upon them the seeds of lust to suffocation. They 
parted, and sought in devious ways to find the Holy 
Grail, not knowing in that dark and stormy day that 
the Kingdom of God is in man's heart, and that His 
hidden treasures are always to be found there. The 
warriors of the Table Round one by one crumbled into 
the dust from whence they came, the golden angel 
raised its pinions and soared from the palace peak; 
grim Time at last swept away all traces of a king's 
abode, and nought remains to us but a legend of 
knights who came to grief and the grave through lack 
of honor and lechery. Mark you, my friend, your 
name, and your body that bears it, comprise your 
palace of Truth, above which God has placed the 
1 See Mr. G.'s water-color sketch of Shechinah, in the first article, 
Am. Journal of Psych. I, 475, and page 16 of the reprints. 12 
NOYES: 
guardian Angel of Peace and Love ; see that you 
wander not from 'Home'; seek not the laughter of 
strangers ; be content with the arrows in your quiver, 
or you, too, may meet with the same disastrous end as 
the knights of the Table Round. 
"Water contains just the same subtle qualities to- 
day as it did when Christ changed the water into wine 
at the marriage of Cana. But we should be careful 
how we use it, for if you mix with it other than good 
thoughts and thankfulness, it will produce no wine in 
your jar, but, on the contrary, something very much 
resembling poison in its action. It is not what we eat 
and drink that hurts us, but what we mix with it from 
our own internal infernal economy. 
"' Spare the rod and spoil the child ' is not to be taken 
literally, for the teaching to be conveyed lies deeper 
than the surface of the line. The child is the recipient 
of a reasoning faculty which, if you cultivate by argu- 
ment and teaching, will spoil the child, in one sense, by 
developing that which is manly in its nature. We beat 
an animal because it has no power of argument or 
speech, but even in this case moral force is better than 
blows ; for the spirit that animates the brute and causes 
it to live is the same that pulsates in the heart of the babe, 
and may be reached in the same way, although we hear 
no audible response to our admonitions. Blows to brute 
or babe are always an evidence of lack of patience and 
want of wit. Striking a child for a misdemeanor is as 
sensible as beating your own head against the wall for 
some error committed; you blunt the very faculties 
you wish to build up and improve when you use brute 
force instead of reasoning and logic. Furthermore, 
you alienate the nature that has been given you to PARANOIA. 
13 
love and cherish ; you repel it instead of drawing it 
towards the light and warmth of your own intelli- 
gence ; you not only extinguish its fire, but you are 
destroying your own as well, for the child is given us 
that he may replenish the holy fire upon our hearth- 
stones as it burns low. 
" Brutality drives the angel from the door and places 
a fiend in its stead. Brutality is a boomerang that 
recedes upon him who uses it as a weapon with 
redoubled force. Wisdom's ways are ways of pleas- 
antness, and all her paths are peace. 
" Prayer to God is always answered ; we are not 
always aware of the fact; when the answer comes to 
us we fail to recognize it because we have made our- 
selves spiritually blind. We cultivate our spiritual 
nature to such a degree that the soul becomes like a 
diamond in a bladder; its beauties are hidden because 
it is shut out from the light of that great power called 
God that made it and its wonders. Man, in the course 
of his life, is constantly brushing past the Angel with- 
out recognition, simply because he is ever plowing 
the fecund earth with his nose, like any mole. Look 
neither up nor down, but straight ahead, fair into the 
eyes of your fellow-creatures ; God's universe is there 
and His kingdom infinite; His messengers respond 
quicker than thought; His mandates pass swifter than 
the flight of bird. His eyes are everywhere beholding 
the evil and the good. ' The wish is father to the 
thought'; therefore be careful that your thoughts 
assume not the garb of the Destroyer, for you must 
e'en play the part if you don the robe; you must fill 
your role or quit the scene." 
Here follows a page from The Light of Asia and 
several old sayings, after which is the following on 
Good Thoughts : 14 
NOYES: 
" Good thoughts breed other good thoughts ; as the 
snowball rolls it gathers its like and grows. There is 
no gift so gladdening as fair speech; other bounties 
that we lavish upon each other fade away and are lost 
and forgotten sometimes, but the music of kind words 
comes ever echoing through the deep defiles of the 
past with all the freshness and joy of the day that 
ushered in their birth. Oh, blessed God-gift of speech I 
" The Bible is Life's great mentor, to which we should 
go for confirmation of our beliefs and acts ; it is the 
standard by which man is to acquire the art of right 
thinking and right doing. ' Ars Tonga, vita brevis.' 
The Old Testament is a history of the natural man 
living under the influence of a God whose personality 
is undefinable and beyond his comprehension ; whose 
presence is only realized through his manifestations 
in Nature. The New Testament is the development 
of a new birth in this natural product of the earth and 
its forces, in which the mind of man is ushered into a 
new light and made to realize that God walks in the 
hearts of men and in time transforms them into a per- 
fect image of himself. The natural man resists this 
new birth just as the elders of the church resisted 
Christ and finally crucified Him ; the earthly and spir- 
itual natures cannot exist together-the one crowds the 
other out-for one is a destroyer, a consumer, while 
the other is always a builder. The spiritual nature in 
man never feeds upon itself, as the physical nature 
often does, but is constantly conceiving new combina- 
tions, evolving new thoughts in the great storehouse 
of the mind, and sending them out on errands of love 
and mercy. The spiritual part of man is like, the 
widow's cruse; draw from it as you will, it never 
empties, for it is a portion of God, and consequently 
inexhaustible." PARANOIA. 
15 
The above is all from what he had gathered together 
under January, there being rather more religious 
matter than in the following months. 
February contains much less that is of interest, the 
first part of the month being taken up with quotations 
from the Bible, Shakespeare, and a long account of 
Neptune. Later on we find the following : 
" He who goes through life with his nose constantly 
in the ground may become intimately acquainted with 
the worth and ways of bugs and sods ; but he will miss 
the great glories of the universe and the mysteries of 
the brotherhood of man. Head erect, eyes to the fore, 
and remember God walks in the secrets of the heart. 
"All the Greek and Roman deities are but different 
phases of that Great Power which we now worship 
as God. And these various forms of worship were 
given to man that the spiritual child might climb to 
the realization of the Infinite by easy grades, and not 
be startled into frenzy, madness and death by the 
glory and magnitude of Him who guides the universe. 
The ancients were great and successful in proportion 
to their faith in their gods and the integrity of their 
devotion. Just as men to-day make a god of money 
and bow to the golden calf, are the most successful in 
gathering money, who are the most sincerely devoted to 
their idol. But all the gold in creation will not save a 
man from the hands of death, or buy back his soul 
when once he has pledged it to an idol of gold. Gold 
is a good means to an end, but should never be mis- 
taken and worshipped as the end-all and be-all of life. 
All the men in history from time immemorial who have 
tried to lift themselves into power and thereby gain 
happiness by a golden lever have been signal failures. 16 
NOYES : 
" The force of love is so great, so strong, so intense, 
that if a man were to fill his store-houses with it at one 
fell swoop, before preparation had been made for such 
commodity, it would burn him and all his belongings 
up. His ministers are a flame of fire. 
" Richelieu said to Baridas, ' Behind thee stalks the 
headsman. ' The same might be said, with equal truth, 
to each one of us : for each man bears his judge with 
him, who condemns or justifies as the case may be. 
The thief, the assassin and murderer always fly the 
hand of justice, but they never by any chance evade 
their doom; they may miss the hand of man, but the 
hand of justice presses them closer than their own 
shadow. Often through the retina of the eye does 
conscience throw upon the ambient air the figure of 
the murderer's victim. A man can no more shirk the 
responsibility of his own misdeeds than he can shake 
off a fever by changing his coat." 
March is devoted almost exclusively to mythology, 
and need not detain us. In April he has given his 
idea of evolution, and its failings as applied to man. 
" The respects in which evolution as a necessary 
process in the natural and brute worlds does not 
wholly apply to man : 
1. Instinct yields to conscious intelligence. 
2. The struggle for existence yields to a moral law 
of preservation, and so is reversed. 
3. Intelligence takes the place of natural selection. 
4. The will comes into supremacy, and so there is a 
complete person. Man, instead of being wholly under 
force, becomes himself a force. 
5. Man attains full, reflective consciousness. 
6. Conscience takes the place of desire. 
7. The rudimentary and instinctive virtues of the 
brutes become moral under will and conscience. 17 
PARANOIA. 
8. Man comes into consciousness of God. 
9. Man's history is in freedom. 
10. Man recognizes and realizes the spirit. 
" Contrasting phenomena of evolution under neces- 
sity and evolution under freedom : 
1. Man changes and tends to create his environ- 
ment ; achieves it largely, and so may prolong it. The 
brute adapted itself to environment, but had no power 
over it. 
2. Man progresses under freedom. The brute pro- 
gressed under laws and environment; man, under will 
and moral principles of action. 
3. Man thinks reflectively, systematizes knowledge 
and reasons upon it; the brute does not, except in a 
rudimentary way. 
4. Man has dominion ; the brute is a subject. 
5. Man worships, having become conscious of the 
Infinite One ; the brute does not. 
6. Man is the end of creation, and the final object of 
it; the brute is a step in the process." 
In the first article a description was given of two of 
his religious diagrams, representing The Sealing of the 
Holy Spirit, and this he refers to in the following 
description of the wheat-berry ; elsewhere in his book 
he quotes from a magazine article on the form and 
structure of the wheat-berry : 
" The wheat-berry has seven coverings, the same as 
man has the seven seals of God upon his spiritual 
grain or soul. Sometimes the worm (called envy, 
hatred, and malice) perforates these coats in the first 
Adam, and the spirit writhes out from its temporary 
abode, in agony, like the wrigglings of matter strained 
through a colander. This is the agony of death, but 
when the seals are kept intact until the season of per- 18 
NOYES : 
feet ripeness arrives, the transition is one of perfect 
peace, and consequently painless. Man, in spite of 
the laws of nature and all that has been written or 
said regarding the theory of evolution, would fain skip 
the chrysalis stage and jump from grub to butterfly, 
without any prolonged period of durance-vile. Pa- 
tience is a hard lesson to learn, no matter how you fix 
it, for man is born with the seed of the tyrant lurking 
somewhere, and wants to rule." 
At this point is inserted the drawing of the Fisher- 
man and the Genii, which is to illustrate a story in 
the Arabian Nights. It is the one under which is the 
inscription 
" Vir .... man 
Gin .... trap," 
this being another pun, the Latin vir meaning man, 
and gin a trap, while combined, virgin equals man- 
trap. 
There are some original verses descriptive of this 
drawing, called Nettles, etc., describing the terror of 
the fisherman on opening the old earthen coffer, to be 
confronted with the air-spirit. 
This concludes the month of April. In the month of 
May, besides the usual mythological stories and Bible 
quotations, is the following original poem : 
" Oh ! Peace beyond the power of thought; 
Oh ! Happiness by good deeds wrought; 
Oh ! Sun that never quits the day ; 
Oh ! Lillie pure as chrystal spray : 
" Oh ! Living mandate of our God ; 
Oh ! Pathway that the Saints have trod ; 
Oh ! Zephyr from the perfect blue ; 
Oh ! Lambkin born of stainless Ewe : 
" Into our chamber's holiest ground, 
Find entrance meet. Let love abound. 
Oh ! fill Thou both our bed and board 
With the full spirit of the Lord. PARANOIA. 
19 
"Guard well the lintel and the sill, 
'Gainst lurking foe and hidden ill, 
And let no discords enter there, 
Nor thoughts that work the soul despair. 
11 But firm in faith, secure in Thee, 
Let worship of the Holy Three 
Purge from our hearts all evils done, 
And bless us with ' Thy Kingdom come.' " 
This is followed by other original verses, and in 
these he makes the only known reference to the fact 
that he is confined in an asylum : 
" 1. Immured in a mansion made for madness, 
Where naught that doth pertain to gladness, 
Enters the gate or through the door, 
"2. I count the hours long and dreary, 
And ruminate and grow most weary: 
The slack of time is such a bore. 
"3. I think, perhaps if I played crazy, 
This life which now seems dull and hazy, 
Would change, if I my clothing tore. 
" 4. A jig, or fit, some caper funny, 
Might add to life a little honey, 
And in the heart some balsam pour. 
"5. But here to sit like wart or bunion, 
Or bulbous growth upon an onion, 
And know the gay world never more- 
"6. I'd rather rise by slow cremation, 
And leave this dismal dull damnation, 
By giving up this mortal corps. 
" 7. What 1 eat and sleep and then grow musty, 
While all your senses clogged and rusty, 
Refuse to act as heretofore ? 
" 8. I'd rather hang upon a gibbet, 
And make old bones for flies to fidget, 
Than sit here till my sides were sore." 
May seems particularly to have inspired him poeti- 
cally, for after these verses come two more series, and 
he concludes the month by quoting the exquisite little 20 
NOYES: 
poem by Austin Dobson, A Fancy from Fontenelle,1 
which he has illustrated by the Maiden and the Gar- 
dener (directly under Taurus). 
The succeeding picture of the series, entitled Faith, 
also has an original poem given to it, but it is rather 
mystical and obscure. The two cherubs are intended 
to represent the Gemini of the zodiac, in some spiritual 
sense, in the same way that Castor and Pollux represent 
it physically. 
June is ushered in by the picture of the Infant 
Hercules (following Faith), and the month is mostly 
taken up with a description of the adventures and 
labors of Hercules, and is concluded by the picture of 
the spirits blowing on The Crab, the crab being the 
zodiacal sign for June. 
Achilles with his spear faces July, and in this 
month the artist has placed the graceful little figure 
La Sonnette, Cupid ringing the bell to awaken the 
maiden within. This is accompanied by some verses 
'As illustrative of Mr. G.'s refined sense and appreciation of 
beauty, perhaps it may not be out of place to quote the verses here, 
as they were intended to accompany the drawing. 
A Fancy from Fontenelle. 
" De memoires de Roses: on n'a point 
vu mourir le Jardinier." 
The Rose in the garden slipped her bud, 
And she laughed In the pride of her youthful blood ; 
As she thought of the Gardener standing by- 
" He Is old-so old I and he soon will die! " 
The full Rose waxed in the warm June air, 
And she spread, and spread till her heart lay bare, 
And she laughed once more as she heard his tread- 
" He is older now. He will soon be dead." 
But the breeze of the morning blew, and found 
That the leaves of the blown Rose strewed the ground, 
And he came at noon, that Gardener old, 
And he raked them softly under the mould. 
And I wove the thing to a random rhyme, 
For the Rose Is Beauty; the Gardener, Time. 
Austin Dobson. PARANOIA. 
21 
which are somewhat more graceful than many he 
writes : 
" La Sonnette. 
" When Love comes ringing at the bell, 
And finds no maid to heed his spell, 
He simply sighs and lifts his eyes, 
And hies away with Alack-a-day ! 
"When Cupid comes on dewy wing, 
What are the notes the zephyrs sing ? 
Come laugh and sing and greet our king, 
For while we may let's make our hay. 
" What says the swaying of the bell, 
What are the words its tinklings tell ? 
Come to the lea, 'tis he, 'tis he ! 
The merry monarch blithe and free, 
Leave bin and care and hail the heir. 
" What says the Sun, when day is done? 
The maids were many, the bride was one. 
Who loves him little should love him long. 
So rhymes the riddle to suit the song, 
Come robe the king, and favors bring." 
The two pictures following, Sub Rosa and the 
Maiden and Cupid, are inserted without any verses 
or explanatory notes. 
The drawing Sesame is more deeply allegorical than 
many of the others. On the right-hand side of it he 
has written the names of the seven coverings of the 
endosperm or center of the wheat-berry, and below is 
the verse from the third chapter of Genesis : 
"So he drove out the man ; and he placed at the 
east of the garden of Eden, cherubim, and a flaming 
sword, which turned every way, to keep the way of 
the tree of life." 
And on the opposite page, verses from the fifth 
chapter of Revelation, beginning, " And I saw on the 
right hand of him that sat on the throne a book, 
written within and on the back side, sealed with seven 
seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a 
loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book, and to 22 
NOYES: 
loose the seals thereof ? . . . . And in the midst of the 
elders stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven 
horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of 
God sent forth into all the earth." 
He thus appears to connect the angel that guarded 
the gate of the Garden of Eden and the angel before 
the throne ; and it is especially interesting to see the 
influence that the number seven has on his mind, as 
was the case with the Seven Sealings of the Holy 
Spirit in his religious diagrams. 
Next in order comes the sketch of Pandora, with a 
description of her attributes, and then several pages 
of description of the beliefs of the Buddhists, on which 
he comments : 
" All these theories and beliefs relative to the great 
Creator are but so many pieces taken from the great 
mosaic of the Bible. All the existing religions in the 
world are simply stars in God's spiritual pyramid, the 
apex and key-stone of which is Christ. The Holy 
Bible is the point from which all beliefs radiate ; it 
contains all that man knows or may know of that 
Supreme Being we call God. All the secrets that 
perished in the Alexandrian Library are hid between 
its two covers, and may be found by those who tread 
the path of love; but let no one with hate imbued 
start upon the quest, for the Holy Book is the Gate of 
the Garden of Eden, and He placed of old at this gate 
an angel with a sword of flame, to guard the ground 
from guilt and shame." 
Reference was made in the former article to the 
fact that he considered himself as undergoing a pro- 
bationary stage, and would in time become worthy to 
receive a great spiritual revelation. This is made 
more clear by the following : PARANOIA. 
23 
" When the realization of the Christ first breaks in 
upon man's nature, it is the dawning of his spiritual 
day, the first gleam of the soul's sun. ' The Sun of 
Righteousness, \from whence we derive light and life, 
and around which spiritual point revolve all earthly 
changes until this Sun is realized in its perfect magni- 
tude, filling space, and being one and inseparable with 
God. When once this truth has germinated in the 
heart of man, if only one thin ray of the heavenly 
light has penetrated to the secret recesses of his 
nature, its influence never leaves him; it may be 
obscured by the fogs and mists of doubt and clouds of 
earthly cares and vexations, but high above the vapors 
of the world rides this Great Redeemer, who is con- 
stantly drawing us imperceptibly to himself, while the 
fire of His love is purging and cleansing away that 
which is mean and perishable in our being, and fitting 
us to behold the full glory of His majesty, and to stand 
in His presence without fear and without reproach. 
Man cannot gaze on the physical sun without blinking, 
much less could stand the glory of the spiritual sun ; 
the vision would consume him, unless he had passed 
through the incarnations which give one the requisite 
spiritual strength. God's mercies are manifold, His 
mysteries marvellous and unanswerable, and that 
which He hath begun abideth forever. Allah ilia 
Allah! " 
The sketch of Libra faces September, and Minerva 
follows, with a description of the goddess; and the 
remainder of the month is mainly given up to religious 
subjects. 
September is prefaced by Aegyptus, the zodiacal 
sign of the month, the scorpion, being seen in the 
circle above the seated Egyptian figure, while Aegyptus 24 
NOYES : 
the Bull follows, with an account of his worship. He 
comments on the Egyptian priesthood, and inciden- 
tally on lunacy, as follows : 
" The confusion of faces, spoken of fin Daniel, is the 
same physical phenomena that gave to the Egyptian 
priesthood, and that of some of the other nationalities, 
gods and goddesses with the heads of birds and beasts. 
When people worship the creature more than the 
creator, then comes the messenger of the gods, 
Mercury, and takes possession of the human body, 
and throws upon its surface whatever he finds re- 
flected upon the mirror of the mind ; hence diversity 
of aspect and consequent confusion. There is nothing 
hidden but shall some day see the light. This phe- 
nomenon is to-day stigmatized as ' Lunacy,' and the 
cunning and science of medicine generally succeeds in 
driving out the angel and sustaining the devil or 
beast, which are one and the same thing. Spiritual- 
istic mediums are under the same influence, and 
usually end their days in some insane asylum, unless 
they change their mode of life, for they are as a rule 
lecherous scatter-brains, either in thought or actual 
practice. This is a rod by which the great good God 
drives men to prayer and search of Him, the Creator 
of all things." 
November being represented by Sagittarius, The 
Archer, is appropriately introduced by Apollo, shown 
in the act of drawing the bow, and a long description 
of him follows; and then comes Bacchus and his 
story, and Barry Cornwall's poem To Bacchus. A 
second sketch of Apollo, here more appropriately 
shown with his lyre, is followed by a poem To Apollo, 
by L. N. Torre. 
December is introduced by the Dancing Bacchante, PARANOIA. 
25 
instead of by Capricornus, the proper zodiacal symbol, 
this latter picture being placed in the middle of the 
month ; and the story of Pan is told. A rather good 
comparison is here given when he says : 
" Man is the social chameleon, whose mind, morals, 
moods, and manners are colored by the thoughts on 
which he dwells." 
The remainder of the book is taken up with religious 
reflections, and these quotations may not inappropri- 
ately be closed by the following, which might not 
seem out of place in the writings of a more ambitious 
and fortunate religious teacher : 
"Men complain of a continuance of bad luck 
because they have not prepared themselves in a way 
to deserve better. People cry out against Nature and 
Fortune because their crops fail and their children 
turn out bad, when the fault lies at home. Hell is just 
as hot and horrible as we have a mind to make it, and 
heaven creeps into a man's heart when the place is fit 
for its indwelling ; it is a condition, not a locality lim- 
ited by any bounds save such as are spiritual and con- 
sequently limitless. You don't have to reach to heaven 
or fly to it; it comes to you when you have finally 
won it, and it makes you a part and parcel of itself; 
in other words, it is the spirit of purity, the spirit of 
Christ dwelling in us and making man his own. 
Growling and grumbling at the humble trivialities of 
life often shuts the angel from the door-turns away 
God's messenger, and retards the dawn of that bright 
day of more perfect light, when we shall no longer see 
as through a glass darkly, but face to face with truth 
revealed in all its native loveliness." 
The sketch Le Voile au Vent and the graceful and 
beautiful Cupid at the door complete the illustrations. 26 
NOYES: 
The mottoes on this last sketch are " Nemo me impune 
lacessit," which he translates, "No one wounds me 
with impunity," and gives it as a motto of the Scots ; 
at the right-hand side " Beauty conquers all," repre- 
senting the " Candore omnia vincit," on the left; and 
" Truth is mighty and will prevail." 
The written matter is brought to a close by the 
following page : 
" He laughs best who laughs last. 
" T, he, some of the means equals t, he, some of the 
extremes. 
" These are the aberrations of a fitful and fit mind. 
Let none erase, nor pen, or trace, 
Upon this book of mine ; 
In solitude I've writ it all, 
And thought upon each line ; 
There's much within that is my own, 
And much that is divine. 
So let no sacrilegious cur 
Pollute the page 
With blot or blur." 
The three remaining illustrations at the end of the 
page would have found a place more appropriately 
in the first article, but it was not possible to give them 
at that time. The larger one represents a photograph 
of his bureau drawer, which well illustrates his passion 
for order and symmetry and for the regular and har- 
monious arrangements of lines. The order of the 
arrangement of these articles never varied from day 
to day, and was maintained with scrupulous exact- 
ness. The carved bowl, with the motto Pro Rege in 
Tyrannos, has already been described. Above this is 
what he called his Chestnut, and represents a shallow 
lead receptacle with a cover fitting over it, in general 
shape resembling a chestnut. It may be recalled that 
the lead was obtained by melting up tin-foil picked up 
on the asylum grounds. The space in the lower half PARANOIA. 
27 
is filled with powdered orris-root, in which is placed 
the body of a locust. 
The grace, beauty, and poetic conceptions shown in 
these sketches and drawings, and also in the quota- 
tions, are such that it must cause the most profound 
regret that such talent and originality should have 
been hampered in its development by a faulty physical 
development, and that an incurable mental disease 
should have clouded such a brilliant intellect. 
As in the former article, it is not proposed to discuss 
the nature of the mental disease from which this 
remarkable and talented man is suffering, but merely 
to present as complete a record as possible of his dis- 
ease. Since his transfer to Ward's Island there have 
been other and different developments of his artistic 
work, but the present article may properly end with 
the close of his residence at the Bloomingdale Asylum.