Madness (n.) is a long dream, and a dream a brief madness.
Madness (n.) is intellect giving up its nature to please the will as the last remedy of harassed nature.
Madness (n.) has something in common with genius: Both live in a world that is different from that which exist for everyone else.
Madness (n.) is a disease of memory: the madman perceives the present correctly but the thread of the past is broken, and he fills the gaps with fictions.
Madness (n.) is nature's last resource against unbearable grief: the mind cuts the thread of memory and fills the gap with fictions, as we cut off a mortified limb and replace it with a wooden one.
Madness (n.) is affected with a high degree of intellectual independence; not conforming to standards of thought, speech and action derived by the conformants from study of themselves; at odds with the majority; in short, unusual intellect.