Quote 19
No crime; love; he repeated, fumbling for his card and pencil, when a Skye terrier snuffed his trousers and he started in an agony of fear. It was turning into a man! He could not watch it happen! It was horrible, terrible to see a dog become a man! At once the dog trotted away. (4.43)
Daily life is agony for Septimus. Transformations occur right before his eyes, and he lives in constant fear.
Quote 20
In the street, vans roared past him; brutality blared out on placards; men were trapped in mines; women burnt alive; and once a maimed file of lunatics being exercised or displayed for the diversion of the populace (who laughed aloud), ambled and nodded and grinned past him, in the Tottenham Court Road, each half apologetically, yet triumphantly, inflicting his hopeless woe. And would he go mad? (4.82)
Part of Septimus’ madness is that he sees the madness in everything else. He can’t get the combat images out of his head and he seems to have some psychic connection to other people struggling with madness.