The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 4, April, 1864Various
Religion
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 4, April, 1864
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
It began to be a noticeable fact that their magnetic power over me was
such that they could cast me down to the borders of despair, and raise
me thence to rapture at will. Thus a few moments of such ordinary
blandishments as the following were the only apparent means of raising
my usually slow-moving spirits from a very low to a very high pitch. I
was complaining of the waste of paper, in writing words of letters three
or four inches high; did not think any law, even a law of nature,
justified the imposition of such an expenditure upon a spouse in a
separate sphere. 'She' promised to tone down the expressions of
attachment until she could talk as largely as she pleased; and to some
further suggestions, replied:
'Really, you are quite impertinent, considering the short time we have
been married.' ...
Slightly singular as it may seem to those who think that this narration
is 'all gammon,' I had gone through the usual course of acquaintanceship
with this airy nothing; was first distant and reserved; then slightly
thawed, though still horrified at the thought of having all my thoughts
read; and finally, after I felt that the invisible eyes had read, in my
memory, every page of my history, was perfectly familiar and at ease in
the presence this finite searcher of hearts.
I find, next in order, the following:
'So you wish me to _prove_ that we were married, do you? Well, when you
become a denizen of this higher, but none the less practical sphere, you
may read, if you please, where, with wonder and strange emotion, I read,
in the heavenly records of marriages.' ... [It was dated about the time
of my birth.] 'Your banter is not so agreeable as your tenderness.' ...
'You are incorrigible. It will take me many a long age to bring you to a
due sense of my importance,' etc. 'Some of my friends are beside
themselves with mirth, at my vain attempts at taming a spirit so rude.'
Then came another promise of opened vision. 'A truly solemn scene is at
hand. Spend the interval in prayer.'
But again there was something wrong about the spiritual zinc or acid,
and the electrical machinery would not work. The fair or foul deceiver
(who knows?) came up very solemn after this failure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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