...of pride

There were no people in strait jackets in Ward Two. Cynics used to say there was no need for them as the worst patients had perished in the fire; yet the more experience one had of Ward Two the more one realised that, in any case, strait jackets were treatments, or restraining processes of the past. Whereas in Treecroft the best-cooked meals (and the most plentiful), the gayest pictures, the brightest bedspreads were to be found in Ward Seven where the so called "sensible" patients lived, in Cliffhaven the brightest ward was Ward Two - that is, in terms of purely chromatic dispersion! And let no one imagine that the framed glassed landscapes on the walls suffered from the attacks of the disturbed patients. Although the surroundings were not openly studied or even admired by the patients, they were not abused. Windows might be broken in the course of a day yet the pictures remained untouched and the flowers stayed in their vases. It seemed that the more articulate members of the ward exuded a fertile pride that spread and flourished silently even in the midst of what one might have called the desert of the most withdrawn patients.

[Faces in the Water, Frame. J]