ECCENTRICITY AND IDIOSYNCRASY, 47r 



to have any intercourse with the inhabitants of the place in which he resides. la 

 carrying out his purpose he proceeds to the most absurd extremes. He speaks 

 to no one he meets, returns no salutations, and his relations with the tradesmen 

 who supply his daily wants are conducted through gratings in the door of his 

 dwelling. He dies, and the wilk which he leaves behind him is found to devote 

 his entire property for the founding of a hospital for sick and ownerless dogs, 

 "the most faithful creatures I have ever met, and the only ones in which I have 

 any confidence." 



Such a man is not insane. There is a rational motive for his conduct — one 

 which many of us have experienced, and which has, perhaps, prompted us to act. 

 in a similar manner, if not to the same extent. 



Another is engaged in vast mercantile transactions, requiring the most thor- 

 ough exercise of the best faculties of the mind. He studies the markets of the 

 world, and buys and sells with uniform shrewdness and success. In all the rela- 

 tions of life he conducts himself with the utmost propriety and consideration for 

 the rights and feelings of others. The most complete study of his character and 

 acts fails to show the existence of the slightest defect in his mental processes. 

 He goes to church regularly every Sunday, but has never been regarded as a par- 

 ticularly religious man. Nevertheless, he has one peculiarity. He is a collector 

 of Bibles, and has several thousand of all sizes and styles, and in many languages. 

 If he hears of a Bible, in any part of the world, different in any respect from 

 those he owns, he at once endeavors to obtain it, no matter how difficult the un- 

 dertaking, or how much it may cost. Except in the matter of Bibles he is dis- 

 posed to be somewhat penurious — although his estate is large — and has been 

 known to refuse to have a salad for his dinner on account of the high price of 

 good olive-oil. He makes his will, and dies, and then it is found that his whole 

 property is left in trust to be employed in the maintenance of his library of Bibles, 

 in purchasing others which may become known to the trustees, and in printing 

 one copy, for his library, of the book in any language in which it does not already 

 exist. A letter which is addressed to his trustees informs them that, when he was 

 a boy, a Bible which he had in the breast-pocket of his coat preserved his life by 

 stopping a bullet which another boy had accidentally discharged from a pistol, 

 and that he then he had resolved to make the honoring of the Bible the duty of 

 his whole life. 



Neither of these persons can be regarded as insane. Both were the subjects 

 of acquired eccentricity, which, in all likelihood, would have ensued in some 

 /Other form, from some other circumstance acting upon brains naturally predis- 

 posed to be thus affected. The brain is the soil upon which impressions act dif-^ 

 ferently, according to its character, just as, with the sower casting his seed wheat 

 upon different fields, some springs up into a luxuriant crop, some grows sparsely, 

 and some, again, takes no root, but rots where it falls. Possibly, if these individ- 

 uals had lived a little longer, they might have passed the border line which sepa- 

 rates mental soundness from mental unsoundness ; but certainly, up to the periods 

 of their deaths, both would have been pronounced sane by all competent laymen 



