True, nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am, but why will say that I am mad?! The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute.

Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence.

And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense?

He knew that Hop-Frog was not fond of wine; for it excited the poor cripple almost to madness; and madness is no comfortable feeling.