routine

W. Somerset Maugham [1874-1965], 1942

[His] day began at 8 A.M. with breakfast on a tray and the morning papers. He shaved in his bath, consulted with his Italian cook about the day's menus and then repaired to his den, where he wrote with a special fountain pen until precisely 12:45 P.M. "My brain is dead after 1 o'clock," Maugham decreed. The rest of the day unfolded with a one-martini lunch, a nap, golf or tennis, the cocktail hour and then a formal black-tie dinner, always with champagne. This rarely varied routine produced 74 novels, plays, collections of essays and short stories in 65 years at his writing desk.

- Alice W. Flaherty, The Midnight Disease, p.99

madness-mad

"The eighteenth century saw a fad among the rich of hiring someone to personify melancholy in their estate parks. The person was usually instructed to dress like a hermit, to refrain from cutting his hair or nails, and to live in a picturesque grotto provided by the employer. When hermits were scarce, statuary or clockwork figures were used instead."
- Alice W. Flaherty, The Midnight Disease, p.65

Image source here.