It happened twice. Friday evening I was telling a friend of mine about my blog, and he asked, “So what does Hanwell refer to?” Then last night I was telling another friend about my blog, and she said, “I like the name. Any significance to it?” Well, yes, there is.
Hanwell is a lunatic asylum.
It comes from a conversation G. K. Chesterton had with a publisher friend (see his book Orthodoxy
Chesterton retorted, “Believing utterly in one’s self is a hysterical and superstitious belief like believing in Joanna Southcote: the man who has it has `Hanwell’ written on his face as plain as it is written on that omnibus.”
From there, Chesterton uses Hanwell to explain what a man should believe in, if he doesn’t believe in himself. The common view of sanity is wrong, he says; sanity is found in poetry while lunacy is found in reason. He explains:
“Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite. The result is mental exhaustion, like the physical exhaustion of Mr. Holbein. To accept everything is an exercise, to understand everything a strain. The poet only desires exaltation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head that splits.”
The world is full of lunacy. I know, because I have helped with that lunacy. Sometimes it seems like there’s a giant padlock on reality, that everything could be unlocked if one only had the key.
Sometimes I can imagine myself in Hanwell, writing letters to those outside my padded cell, absorbed in finding explanations for every part of the universe.
But sometimes I feel like I am free, an escapee who has become a poet. Sometimes I get this great aspiration to help others get their heads into the heavens, to let our imagination be captured by this vast universe that we live in.
Perhaps it’s a lofty goal, but that’s what I hope this blog is about.
Whoa! Talk about major metaphysical stuff… Didn’t writing that give you a headache?
Comment by Hans Mast [Visitor] — October 3, 2005 @ 10:07 am
Thanks! Actually, I find things like this really stimulating. Odd perhaps, but I do.
Comment by Matthias Miller [Member] — October 3, 2005 @ 11:09 am
Matthias, your wonderful! I’m totally excited to see what you’ve written. I’m bookmarking it as soon as I get home!
Comment by Nic Miller [Visitor] — October 4, 2005 @ 6:48 pm
I live in Hanwell London and must protest, we are not all bonkers thanks
Regards Paul who knows nothing about C/C++ or minus
Comment by Paul [Visitor] — March 28, 2006 @ 8:51 am
I grew up in Hanwell, West London.
I was always led to believe that Hanwell derived from Hand Well, on account of the all the fresh water springs in the area, and consequently all the wells.
The association with a lunatic asylum comes from the fact that Hanwell is in Ealing, which was known to have a number of sanatoria. Supposedly the name Ealing derived from the word “yelling” on account of all the patients’ screaming and shouting.
I remember there used to be a mental institution on the Southall side of Ealing Hospital.
I also remember going for walks along the Grand Union Canal, heading from Hanwell to Southall and seeing a wall with boarded-up windows on the side of the towpath. Supposedly that was a wall from one the original sanatoria.
Comment by MAB [Visitor] — April 16, 2006 @ 8:43 am
Thanks MAB! It’s helpful to hear some background from somebody who grew up in the town of Hanwell.
Comment by Matthias Miller [Member] — April 16, 2006 @ 10:23 pm
Funny how serendipity works. I was googling Hanwell as I’m moving there in a week, while purportedly writing some Javascript, and I chance upon this blog which leads me to your lint app. I shall take this as a good sign.
Comment by Jim [Visitor] — July 12, 2006 @ 2:28 pm