Facing the Flag

irector of the establishment of Healthful House was a very nea

D'AR

f the card, the following addr

Ebba, anchored off Ne

that this city has become the seat of the State legislature, for there are others that equal and even surpass it in industrial and commercial importance, such as Wilmington, Charlotte, Fayetteville, Edenton, Washington, Salisbury, Tarbor

e from the Count d'Artigas soliciting permission to visit the establishment. The personage in question hoped that the director would gran

rt of a foreigner. Others who did not bear such a high-sounding name as the Count d'Artigas had visited it, and had been unstinting in their compliments to the directo

ry, was a private enterprise. Independent of hospitals and almshouses, but subjected to the surveillance of the State, it comprised

with the magnificent vegetation that grows so luxuriantly in that part of North America, which is equal in latitude to the Canary and Madeira Islands. At the furthermost l

more generally reserved for the treatment of chronic complaints; but the management did not decl

thful House, and which perhaps was the motive for the visit of the Count d'Artigas-that a

d to subjects demanding the exercise of his genius, his sanity was unimpaired and unassailable-a fact which demonstrates how true is the dictum that genius and madness are often closely allied! Otherwise his condition manifested itself by complete loss of memory;-the impossibility of concentrating his attention upon anything, lack of judgment, delirium

case of Thomas Roch? One may be permitted to doubt it, even amid the tranquil and salubrious surroundings of Healthful House. As a matter of fact the very symptoms of uneasiness, changes of temper, irritability, queer trait

impressions. In the case of Thomas Roch this indifference was practically absolute. He lived but within himself, so to speak, a prey to a fixed idea which had brought him

States, why the Federal government had judged it prudent and necessary to intern him in this sanitarium, where

shington, had received a demand for an audience in regard

tood the nature of the communication and the terms which would ac

to his keeping, and which he was bound to safeguard, he could not hesitate to receive the p

ained purely theoretical had received practical application. He occupied a conspicuous place in the front rank of the army of science. It will be seen how worry, deceptions, mortificat

paratus possessed, if he was to be believed, such superiority over all others,

are still fresh in everybody's memory. It is useless to insist upon this point, because there are sometimes circumstances underlying affairs of this kind upon which it is difficult to obtain any light. In regard to Thomas Roch,

om the profits which he had a right to expect, his temper had become soured. He became suspicious, would give up nothing without knowing just what he was doing, impose conditions that were perhaps unacceptable, wanted his

pass upon his proposition. The fulgurator was a sort of auto-propulsive engine, of peculiar construction, charged with an e

c strata was so terrific that any construction, warship or floating battery, within a zone of twelve thousand square yards, would be blown to atoms. This was the princip

rating, notwithstanding that the tests of other engines he had conceived had proved incontestably that they were all he had claimed them to be? This, experiment could alon

felt that he was developing a condition of mind that would gradually lead to definite madnes

s with him, and the newspapers, even those of the Radical Opposi

brate. For the honor of human nature be it said that Thomas Roch was by this time irresponsible for his actions. He preserved his whole consciousness only in so far as subjects bearing directly upon his invention were concer

s ought to have been taken to prevent him from offering it elsewher

f the citizen-who before belonging to himself belongs to his country- became extinct in the soul of the disappointed inventor. His th

nication. Besides, it so happened that the military authorities were just then absorbed by the constr

came to naught. The English being practical people, did not at first repulse Thomas Roch. They sounded him and tried to get round him; but Roch would listen to nothing.

g daily worse, that he made a last effort by approaching the America

which, in view of the French chemist's reputation, they attached exceptional importance. They rightly esteemed h

alienation, the Administration, in the very interest o

l House, which offered every guarantee for the proper treatment of his malady. Yet, though

the heat of his eloquence he would describe the marvellous qualities of his fulgurator and the truly extraordinary effects it caused. As to the nature of the explosive and of the deflagrator, the elements of which the latter was composed, their manufacture, and the way in which they were employed, he preserved complete silence, and all attempts to worm the secret out of him remained ineffectual. On

his guardian lived in the same pavilion, slept in the same room with him, and kept constant watch upon him, never leaving him for an hour. He hung upon the lightest words ut

aving learned that an attendant speaking French fluently was wanted, he had applied

at that time, and was fully able to appreciate such a man as Thomas Roch. He firmly believed in the power of the latter's fulgurator, and had no doubt whatever that the inventor had conceived an engine that was capable of revolutionizing the condition of both offensive and defensive warfare on land and sea. He was aware that the demon of insanity had respected the man of science, and that in Roch's partially diseased brain the flame of genius still burned brightly. Then it occurred to him that if, during Roch's crises, his secret was revealed,

sition and education to perform the menial and exacting duties of an insane man's attendant; but, as has been before remarked, he was actuated by a spirit of the purest and

y to his questions that was of the slightest value. But he had become more convinced than ever of the importance of Thomas Roch's discovery, and was extremely appre

e mission to which he had wholly devoted hi

cut features, iron-gray hair and moustache, eyes generally haggard, but which became piercing and imperious when illuminated by his dominant idea, thin lips closely compressed, as though to prevent the escape of a word that co