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Fan, issue 2, July 1945
Page 13
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13 who had been chosen. But those members present who knew him personally, frowned in puzzlement. Something seemed wrong. Dr. Sherman had always been known as an informal narrator whose genial personality and ready wit brought rumblings of laughter from his listeners; but now he stood there straight and serious and unsmiling, a tall gray-haired figure with a far-away fantasy, even fear, in his eyes. He began his story slowly, very slowly and softly at first, but as a chess player maps his game he gradually led up to his subject, and the interest of each man around that table heightened as the doctor's words came more and more vividly from the well of memory. BEING a practising Psychiatrist (he began), it has been my lot to observe and analyze madmen who were geniuses in their madness, and quite conversely, geniuses who were madmen. As the years of my career went by, these cases lost their unusual aspects to me and I remembered tham not as experiences, but as instances -- recalled to mind only when I wished to diagnose some case of similar nature. One and only one still stands out in my memory, strong and vivid: the case of Phillip Maxton and the violin string. I remember Maxton well. I have every reason to, though our axquaintance was but for a short evening, an evening when he approached me in my home on the Heights and confessed to me without premble that he was going mad, that, indeed, he was mad. The night was stormy, and I had secluded myself in the comfort of my study, when there came to my ears the steady and persistent ringing of the doorbell. A moment later my servant ushered into my presence a well-set, studious young man whose face bore the mark of good breeding and intelligence -- and more. For there was a hint of wild terror in his eyes combined with a look of hopeless longing! He reminded me of a man who had seen a vision of Heaven yet could find no way of attaing it. His brow was wide and almost classic, and I judged him to be a student, even one whose mind was inclined to the metaphysical. In age he must have been near thirty. I proved to be correct in my surmises. His name, when he introduced himself, was one well known to me by virtue of his published works. He was an outstanding parsonage in that experimental field of science dealing with vibration and structural Dimensions. He had also published many tracts on the latent powers of the mind, tracts which I had thoroughly read -- for although some were inclined to be wild, others were of deep thought and possessed merit. His name no doubt some of you will recognize: Phillip Maxton. Perhaps some of you may even recall the stir his
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13 who had been chosen. But those members present who knew him personally, frowned in puzzlement. Something seemed wrong. Dr. Sherman had always been known as an informal narrator whose genial personality and ready wit brought rumblings of laughter from his listeners; but now he stood there straight and serious and unsmiling, a tall gray-haired figure with a far-away fantasy, even fear, in his eyes. He began his story slowly, very slowly and softly at first, but as a chess player maps his game he gradually led up to his subject, and the interest of each man around that table heightened as the doctor's words came more and more vividly from the well of memory. BEING a practising Psychiatrist (he began), it has been my lot to observe and analyze madmen who were geniuses in their madness, and quite conversely, geniuses who were madmen. As the years of my career went by, these cases lost their unusual aspects to me and I remembered tham not as experiences, but as instances -- recalled to mind only when I wished to diagnose some case of similar nature. One and only one still stands out in my memory, strong and vivid: the case of Phillip Maxton and the violin string. I remember Maxton well. I have every reason to, though our axquaintance was but for a short evening, an evening when he approached me in my home on the Heights and confessed to me without premble that he was going mad, that, indeed, he was mad. The night was stormy, and I had secluded myself in the comfort of my study, when there came to my ears the steady and persistent ringing of the doorbell. A moment later my servant ushered into my presence a well-set, studious young man whose face bore the mark of good breeding and intelligence -- and more. For there was a hint of wild terror in his eyes combined with a look of hopeless longing! He reminded me of a man who had seen a vision of Heaven yet could find no way of attaing it. His brow was wide and almost classic, and I judged him to be a student, even one whose mind was inclined to the metaphysical. In age he must have been near thirty. I proved to be correct in my surmises. His name, when he introduced himself, was one well known to me by virtue of his published works. He was an outstanding parsonage in that experimental field of science dealing with vibration and structural Dimensions. He had also published many tracts on the latent powers of the mind, tracts which I had thoroughly read -- for although some were inclined to be wild, others were of deep thought and possessed merit. His name no doubt some of you will recognize: Phillip Maxton. Perhaps some of you may even recall the stir his
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