Content warning. This episode contains medical ableism regarding mental illness. Dr. Seward's diary. Kept in phonograph. 25 May. Ebb tied in appetite today. Cannot eat. Cannot rest. So diary instead. Since my rebuff of yesterday, I have a sort of empty feeling. Nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be worth the doing. As I knew that the only cure for this sort of thing was work, I went down amongst the patients.
I picked out one who has afforded me a study of much interest. He is so quaint that I am determined to understand him as well as I can. Today I seemed to get nearer than ever before to the heart of his mystery. I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view to making myself master of the facts of his hallucination. In my manner of doing it, there was, I now see, something of cruelty.
I seemed to wish to keep him to the point of his madness, a thing which I avoid with the patience as I would the mouth of hell. Mem, under what circumstances would I not avoid the pit of hell? Omnia ro mai venalia sunt. Hell has its price. Verb. Sap. If there be anything behind this instinct, it would be valuable to trace it afterwards accurately, so I had better commence to do so.
Therefore, R. M. Renfield, 8-Hat-59. Sanguine temperament, great physical strength, morbidly excitable, periods of gloom ending in some... fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally accomplished finish. A possibly dangerous man. probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men, caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves.
What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed point, the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal. When duty, a cause, etc. is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount. And only accident or a series of accidents can balance it. 25 May. My dear art. We've told yarns by the campfire in the prairies and dressed one another's wounds after trying to land in at the Marquesas and drunk healths on the shore at Titicaca.
There are more yarns to be told, and other wounds to be healed, and another health to be drunk. Won't you let this be at my campfire tomorrow night? I have no hesitation in asking you, as I know with certain ladies engaged to a certain dinner party, and that you are free. There will only be one other, our old pal at the career. Jack Seward. He's coming too. And we both want to mingle our weeps over the wine cup. And a drink of health with all our hearts to the happiest man in all the wide world.
who's won the noblest heart that God has made and the best worth winning. We promise you a hearty welcome and a loving greeting. And health as true is your own right hand. We shall both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep to a certain pair of eyes. Come. Yours. As ever and always, Quincy P. Morris. This episode featured Jonathan Sims as Jack Seward and Giancarlo Herrera as Quincy P. Morris. Dialogue editing by Steven Indrasano. Sound design by Tal Manier.
Featuring music by Travis Reeves. Produced by Ella Watts and Pacific S. Obadiah. With executive producers Stephen Indrasano, Tal Minear, and Hannah Wright. A Bloody FM production.