For half an hour he continues to perform all
possible evolutions of caprioles, pirouettes, and other extravagant feats
of activity, accompanying himself on the fiddle; and, at length, not
having once looked at his guests, the elderly gentleman whirls out of the
room in the same transport of emotion with which he entered it; the panic-
struck visitors are requested by a slave to consider themselves as
dismissed: they retire; resume their couches:--the nocturnal pageant has
"dislimned" and vanished; and on the following morning, were it not for
their concurring testimonies, all would be disposed to take this
interruption of their sleep for one of its most fantastic dreams. The
elderly gentleman, who figured in this delirious _pas seul_--who was
he? He was Tiberius Caesar, king of kings, and lord of the terraqueous
globe. Would a British jury demand better evidence than this of a
disturbed intellect in any formal process _de lunatico inquirendo_?
For Caligula, again, the evidence of symptoms is still plainer. He knew
his own defect; and purposed going through a course of hellebore.
Sleeplessness, one of the commonest indications of lunacy, haunted him in
an excess rarely recorded.
Pages:
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167