The tone of this and other such letters as survive seems halfway between the obsequious and the detached: dignified and controlled on the one hand, and leavened with Uriah Heep—like toadying on the other. Minor wants desperately to know that he is being helpful. He wants to feel involved. He wants, but knows he can never demand, that praise be showered on him. He wants respectability, and he wants those in the asylum to know that he is special, different from others in their cells.
