Annotated and Abridged Artifact
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Life In The Asylum, Part 1
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Abridged Text | ||
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| 1 | FIRST DAY. | |
| 2 | DEAR FRIEND: -- You ask me to give you life in the Asylum. It does not differ much from life out of the Asylum. Pray take my eye and view the hall I enter, as visitor. Passing from the entrance to the great building, you are ushered into a long dining-room, which is lighted through a verandah of equal dimensions, overlooking the central square of the building. Projecting wings run backward, and a rear building, containing the printing-office, bakery, &c., forming a square. You see busy men and women passing to and fro. It is in the centre building you stand, from which are also two side wings. A door is unlocked, and you enter the ladies' apartment -- a long hall, over two hundred feet in length, and perhaps sixteen in breadth, is before you. A bow window down at the end lights this apartment. Ladies are seen gliding to and fro from rooms which open on either side. You will be kindly offered a place on one of the nice settees, and a group surrounds you; kindly words of greeting meet you; all are busy, as in a home parlour -- some with book, -- some with needle -- all look happy, in neat and becoming attire. The rich and poor meet here without livery or pride, each maintaining true self-respect; for each is content and helps to bear the burthen of the other. To the spirit of goodness is allotted the highest seat. Grace here abounds. [1 »] | |
| 4 | Let us stop at this open door. We enter the boudoir of a lady, elegant in manners and intellectual in conversation. She is surrounded by the luxuries of taste and industry, in her varied works of skill we are beguiled to pass an hour, which only seems too short. We have received a refining incitement, and we would linger longer, but must pass on [2 »] to mother genius. A little lady with pen to poetize; books and pictures adorn her room, lending an influence to her magic spell -- a quiet spirit, we will not long disturb; thence pass on. Birds begin to sing with cheering note, responding to cheering voices, who have called them up, and we too join the voices gay of yonder room, where a lady fair, and enbonpoint [3 »], is making merriment with a little court around her. She is plying her needle in such fantastic shapes -- so comic is her pen-wiper, you cannot help but buy it. Here are dolls for the baby, pincushions for the toilet. It's all the work of benevolent impulse; the lady works for the good of the house, and her happy face beams with goodness. [4 »] | |
| 5 | Some doors are shut; no one enters without a knock; for each one is mistress of her own apartment, and may live in solitude or company, according to her mood. [5 »] We reach a niche, midway the long hall, and seat ourselves on its comfortable lounge. A window opens to our view a beautiful lawn in front of the building, beyond it the valley of the Mohawk. But we are drawn within doors to the prospect of the "Opal Library," [6 »] and here is the mind fed from the purest literature of the past and present age; and here we must commend the authorities laid open for strengthening reason and purifying the heart. Medicine divine is most conspicuous; Bibles, with able commentators; religious charts and encyclopedias; the best sermons of the best divines, those who go to the fountainhead of earthly power in the divine will revealed from heaven, -- Hobart and Spring, Wesley and Watson, Edward and Alleine, are side by side; -- the best of poetry from Cowper, Young, Milton, Tennyson, &c.; -- a few of the best selected tales of fiction. No parent need fear to feed his child's mind from the "Opal Library." [7 »] | |
| 7 | SECOND DAY. | |
| 8 | DEAR FRIEND: -- I can't get out. The lock and key of St. Power is over me. [8 »] I came here yesterday a visitor, and I gave you what a visitor's eye takes in of life in an Asylum. "The eye," says a modern Transcendental, "sees what it brings." -- "To Newton, or Newton's dog Diamond, how different the universe!" [9 »] Yesterday I saw a bower of bliss. Who could refuse to be happy here? So many comforts, such beautiful occupations, such good company! But, today -- the poetry of Asylum life has faded before the near vision of stern reality. Yet, it is a gala day and all are engaged in preparation for its exhibition. It's like the day of a party at home. Robes of pink and blue are seen floating in one room -- mantua-makers are fitting in another -- here are plumes and flowers congregating and nod to each other o'er ladies' caps and bonnets -- vases are filling with the flowers of nature from the green-house -- bouquets are admired in the stand. The looking-glass is consulted, and fashion with taste appealed to -- in its power woman rules. | |
| 9 | Now comes the power of man, with his scaffoldings and hammer sounds. I try to pass his boundary and my fate is declared. The master, man, makes me a lunatic in these walls. He will not let me pass his door. [10 »] I declare myself a free woman; he pays me no heed, but hammers in his nail the stronger and the louder. I am not insane -- yes; but in Rome we must do as Romans do, and here insane I must be; it's my only prerogative -- I call for my attendant, and her key gives me the freedom of an hour to range amid the flowers of Asylumia. [11 »] There were brilliant exotics arranged for me to view; but I am not free, I cannot see Paradise to-day. I would not be a slave. Give me the will to choose and the mind to perform my allotted work. My task is given me by master minds, who have not consulted mine, for I would have a key to unlock the door from Asylum-life. What bitter feeling is engendered by the fact, "I can't get out!" I see no beauty in these flowers ranged before my eye -- its demon throws an ebony hue over them. I turn to the free air without, it brings to my ear appeals to get out. I would set the poor captives free. I look for a champion knight. The Doctor is the champion knight here, and his process is one of bitter pills. I would walk beyond these bounds. You must ask the Doctor. The Doctor! I did not come here to be ruled by the Doctor. I came here a visitor. It was very pleasant to bow to the Doctor's smiling attention yesterday; to obey as a patient his mandates of to-day is another matter. I am insane now; a host of demons are to be quelled into a reasonable submission. For this I seek in my own room a physician's help, who holds a key over all state powers. To him is given the bow of deep submission, the noise and tumult of demons subside, and in quiet self-possession I am free. True, the wall of sense is around me, but it falls before the master's touch, and the spirit power. No miracle is this, but a stern command has been obeyed, and in deep submission -- the spirit of love has been imparted to the performance of duty. It has set the prisoner free to enjoyments which sense and heaven alike bestow. Again we see. Reviewing the beauty of yesterday, we seize it -- in our acceptance, find reason's gift restored. Again, with my eye I ask you to view the life within the hall, and be caught with me in the fact of preparation. I am in the toils of a lady of industry, with needle and with brush, with pen and pencil scarce note the hours in their flight. [12 »] | |
Annotations
1. Taking the form of a letter, this piece describes two days at the asylum. Note the architecture of the building. Antebellum asylums invariably had two wings, one male and one female. Thus the interior described here is by definition female space occupied by “Ladies” with many of the accoutrements of middle-class domesticity.
2. This paragraph intensifies the female-centeredness of the space. With “mother genius,” a woman writes.
3. “En bon point” is French for “in good shape.” It is a version of “embonpoint,” or plump.
4. The needlework suggests feminine pursuits, and the moral tone and work in the name of benevolence fit well with contemporary notions of gender roles among middle-class Americans.
5. Whether “mood” here denotes a psychiatric condition or treatment remains unanswered.
6. The Opal Library contained many works of high literature.
7. Note how the author refers to religion as “medicine divine.” Religious instruction was part of moral treatment. The author is obviously highly educated. Note the emphasis on the morally uplifting nature of the books in the Opal Library.
8. What exactly is meant by “St. Power” is open to interpretation, but the reference is to confinement.
9. She is saying that her perspective from the first day to the second has changed radically.
10. Perhaps there is ongoing construction at the asylum. The references here are to a masculine power that confines her.
11. “Asylumia,” a sort of separate nation for the insane within the confines of the asylum, appears frequently in The Opal. The inhabitants of Asylumia are sometimes referred to as “Opalians.”
12. This paragraphs contained many references to freedom, liberation, and the role of the doctor. The author seems to be making an assertion of self-contained freedom as act of feminine submission to the treatments offered by the doctor.
