outward and is repeated by the body,--which holds the locust,--it
disperses into insignificant movements and thirds; but when it is done,
as now the operation, it becomes great again, and, ever increasing,
flows onward through all time. Thus the Rhine rushes like a giant from
its summit, disperses in the fog, falls as rain upon the plain, then it
forms itself into clouds, and roams over the sands, and carries suns
instead of rainbows.
It need not be concealed from you that it affected me to look into the
retina of two such bright and warm, upturned eyes, without mentioning
the whole warlike array of curls and lips, and forehead, and the
Waterloo landscapes of the cheeks. Nadine's terror at the teeth of the
brown little doctor made her more charming, and the danger of my
situation greater. After holding it for some time, when I thought the
operation was finished, she told me the locust had not yet touched her,
as I held it two or three Parisian feet too far from the wart. It is
true, I had lost myself in her net skin; but I remarked that the cure
could not be accomplished, if I did not rest the ball of my right hand
slightly on her cheek, in order to hold the wart-eater more firmly over
the wart. Now he bit the required wound, and propelled into it as much
of his corrosive fluid as he carried with him. I artfully diverted
Nadine's pain, which resembled that of a pin pricking, by
philosophizing. Man, I said, finds the stoic theory true and forcible
for all pain, only not for the present. And when he bleeds from cut
wounds, he imagines bruises heal more easily. He therefore defers his
practice of the stoic-school until his own schooling is over. O, but
then he stands by a running stream, waiting until the waters shall have
passed. True firmness bears the bite of a locust, and rejoices at the
trial!
Now the operation was happily accomplished, which could easily excite
an illness in me. It is true that her countenance had inflicted a
deeper wound on me than the wart-eater upon it,--I should fear and
examine whether mine, which was just as near to hers, had done as much
damage; but Nadine is exceedingly--young. The hearts of young girls,
like new waterbutts, at first let everything drop through, until in
time, the vessels swell and thus retain their contents.
506th STATION.
Objections To Immortality.--The Second Childhood of the
Outer and Inner Man.
We broke up and proceeded. On high, light feathers floated through the
sky, like the loose-flowing hair of the sun, which could not veil it.
The day became hotter and stiller. But our path lay beneath a green
roof, and each branch spread over us a parasol of broad fresh leaves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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