William Chester Minor is one of my favorites and I have a sneaking suspicion that he might just be your kind of Victorian-era madman too, Jeruba. :-) Edit: And no, I wouldn’t wish insanity on anyone. I have seen it in the flesh, in someone I love very much, I have stared it in the face, I have seen how it terrorizes and destroys of person’s soul; how it destroys everything they are and could have been, and no, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.