The Gay Gnani of Gingalee; or, Discords of Devolution: A Tragical Entanglement of Modern Mysticism and Modern ScienceHuntley, Florence
Religion
The Gay Gnani of Gingalee; or, Discords of Devolution: A Tragical Entanglement of Modern Mysticism and Modern Science
Huntley, Florence
Mysticism -- Humor; Religion and science -- Fiction
Words can not exploit the possibilities of electricity when centered
upon a human organism, however attenuated. Up to this last moment the
captive had been stirred only by his internal emotions of baffled
love, and of deadly fear. Now, however, to internal agony was added
outward destruction. To the convulsions of the soul were added the
contortions of the body, and with every revolution of the fatal
cylinder the reappearing envelope of the doomed soul was seen to be
shrinking and shriveling out of all semblance to a man.
What at breakfast had been the lithe and debonnair Gnani of Gingalee,
a transparent and elegant gentleman, was now but a thick, cloudy
shape, an opaque, formless figure, an unhandsome thing resembling the
body of a bent, crooked and deformed child.
Bill Vanderhook was wildly elated.
He beamed upon the exhibit with satanic glee. He laughed for joy over
the pallid and lifeless thing whirling under his hand. He emitted a
low whistle of profound satisfaction. He made notes in his book with
excited dots and dashes. At last his triumph broke all bounds. He
roared like a whole grandstand at the last touchdown.
“I say, Genesy, that’s what you call a _Nee_go on the home run. Get
onto the size of him. Looks like ’leven cents, don’t he? Dollars to
dimes he hasn’t enough mysticism left to illuminate a hollow punkin.
The next Gooroo from Gingalee won’t run up against an Edison plant. If
he does, he’ll find he isn’t the whole push. Just look at the shape of
him. Now ain’t you stuck on that? And isn’t he just swinging round the
circle like a presidential candidate? Well, well, well, I say, Genesy,
if this don’t beat the tom-tom.”
The transformation of the mystic was sustaining the hypothesis of the
materialist. The reduction of the astral man was a visible, tangible
and scientific fact.
And Imogene, the faithless,--what did she? She gazed and shuddered.
That which she saw was not her ideal. It was no longer her lover. Nor
was it a man. It was not even suitable bric-a-brac for a refined home.
It was only a Spectacle.
She did not speak. There are times when even a woman feels the
advantages of silence. But she gazed upon her late admirer and then
upon Bill. She had to acknowledge to her inner consciousness that her
own husband cut much the better figure of the two.
Round and round swept the cylinder, its fierce currents and their
fated victim.
The features of the mystic were no longer recognizable. The
contortions and distortions of body, limbs and features were fearful.
The external application of electricity and the internal throes of
passion and pain have done their fatal work.
Again and again an increased current, regulated by the avenger,
hastened in exact ratio the destruction of the astral man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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