Where Fancies Fly with Painted Wings to Dazzle and Mislead [excerpt]

     The term insanity, so often misconceived, seems to present to the mind of the general public an idea diametrically opposed to that of the alienist.
     The picture most commonly accepted of dishevelled [sic] hair, untidy appearance, bizarre dress, wild, incoherent speech and [390][391] vain babblings, or the drooling mouth, senile smile, and tottering, halting step of the prematurely aged is really an exception, rather than that most usually encountered in insane hospitals.
     While admitting that a murderer, obsessed by his original criminal instincts in exaggerated form, must be insane; yet the public has been slow in realizing that Ravaillac, Bresci, Caserio, Luccheni, Wilkes Booth, Guiteau and Czolgosz were really insane men, and therefore wholly irresponsible; their so-called crimes having been committed under the influence of morbid delusions. That these have their prototypes far along the ages, surely none may doubt; or that others than Nero have worn the royal purple. Note Caligula carousing with his jewel-decked horse and naked jockeys; Elagabalus, with gaily painted face, working in woman’s garb with the vain delusion of bringing the Lady Moon from Carthage to wed the Sun Giant.