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
''Though all men forsake thee,' said Peter, 'yet will not I forsake
thee.' So now, when the highest spirits of heaven have fled in terror
and dismay, your poor darling will not forsake you. Well might I sit,
like Job's friends, seven days, ay, seventy times seven, in silent
contemplation of him who--woe is me!--fears that I am but another
Delilah, commissioned by his enemies to betray him into their hands.
What can I say? what do? Oh that I had never seen the glorious light of
the sun or the pure myriads of my happy home, rather than I should have
beheld that sight last night. How can I explain the fact that he, whom
I, at least, believe to be heaven's most supreme (string of adjectives)
favorite, is sitting here with his unutterable but unrepining sorrow
looking forth from his ... eyes.'
Just here I caught a glimpse of my divinity, and turning in wrath and
scorn to my Titania, said, mockingly:
"While I thine _amiable_ cheeks do coy!"
To this she replies: 'Do not heap additional reproaches upon me, by any
such awfully ludicrous quotations.' ... 'So you think that your Delilah
is striving to gain time by all these pious and otherwise interesting
remarks?' ... 'Nay, do not with loathing cast me from you as an an
unholy and hateful thing! for then, oh, what I should then do or be, I
cannot, dare not even think.' ... 'Again you see my woman's heart cannot
suppress its emotions toward one who still hopes that he has been
talking with ----; and who says that, for him to be convinced of
this, is to be convinced that she who has been talking with him has not
intentionally deceived him.'
She then wrought upon my feelings by portraying her sufferings, until,
in my maudlin condition, I was casting about to find how I should help
her; just as you sometimes see a drunken tramp striving to pull his
drunken pal out of a ditch.
'So, most self-forgetful, you begin to think that you ought to help me
bear my burden; as you have planned sitting there, with your little
friend encircling you in her so warm embrace. But why should I inform
you of such fact, as this last, until you are convinced that all you
have heard is not the wily utterance of seducing and hellish spirits?
Try not to entertain such awful suspicions. As to the cause of these
lamentable failures, I can only suppose that the Lord wishes to make us,
who wrongly prophesied, sensible of our inability to foretell future
events.'
Then came some bungled Scriptures about my 'mission,' which roused my
ire. My taunts drew forth this response:
'Why do you love to ridicule my tenderness, and speak so awfully to one
who has no other human source of perfect happiness?'
The day following, the solemn dodge was again resorted to. I began to
feel a sort of awe creeping over me. My affectionate friend thereupon
wrote:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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