“So strong is the belief in life, in what is most fragile in life—real life, I mean—that in the end this belief is lost …
The mere word “freedom” is the only one that still excites me. I deem it capable of indefinitely sustaining the old human fanaticism … Imagination alone offers me some intimation of what can be, and this is enough to remove to some slight degree the terrible injunction …
There remains madness, “the madness that one locks up”, as it has been aptly described. That madness or another … We all know, in fact, that the insane owe their incarceration to a tiny number of legally reprehensible acts and that, were it not for these acts their freedom … would not be threatened … indeed, hallucinations, illusions, etc., are not a source of trifling pleasure. The best controlled sensuality partakes of it … I could spend my whole life prying loose the secrets of the insane. These people are honest to a fault, and their naiveté has no peer but my own …
It is not the fear of madness which will oblige us to leave the flag of imagination furled …”