"Thou wretch!--thou vixen!--thou shrew!"--said I to my wife on the morning after our wedding--"thou witch!--thou hag!--thou whippersnapper!--thou sink of iniquity!--thou fiery-faced quintessence of all that is abominable!--thou--thou--" Here standing upon tiptoe, seizing her by the throat, and placing my mouth close to her ear, I was preparing to launch forth a new and more decided epithet of opprobrium which should not fail, if ejaculated, to convince her of her insignificance, when, to my extreme horror and astonishment, I discovered that _I had lost my breath_. The phrases "I am out of breath," "I have lost my breath," &c. are often enough repeated in common conversation, but it had never occurred to me that the terrible accident of which I speak could _boná fide_ and actually happen! Imagine--that is if you have a fanciful turn--imagine I say, my wonder--my consternation--my despair! There is a good genius, however, which has never, at any time, entirely deserted me. In my most ungovernable moods I still retain a sense of propriety, _et le chemin des passions me conduit_--as Rousseau says it did him--_à la philosophie veritable_. Although I could not at first precisely ascertain to what degree the occurrence had affected me, I unhesitatingly determined to conceal at all events the matter from my wife until farther experience should discover to me the extent of this my unheard of calamity. Altering my countenance, therefore, in a moment, from its bepuffed and distorted appearance, to an expression of arch and coquettish benignity, I gave my lady a pat on the one cheek, and a kiss on the other, and without saying one syllable, (Furies! I could not,) left her astonished at my drollery, as I pirouetted out of the room in a _Pas de Zephyr_. Behold me then safely ensconced in my private _boudoir_, a fearful instance of the ill consequences attending upon irascibility--alive with the qualifications of the dead--dead with the propensities of the living--an anomaly on the face of the earth--being very calm, yet breathless. Yes! breathless. I am serious in asserting that my breath was entirely gone. I could not have stirred with it a feather if my life had been at issue, or sullied even the delicacy of a mirror. Hard fate!--yet there was some alleviation to the first overwhelming paroxysm of my sorrow. I found upon trial that the powers of utterance which, upon my inability to proceed in the conversation with my wife, I then concluded to be totally destroyed, were in fact only partially impeded, and I discovered that had I, at that interesting crisis, dropped my voice to a singularly deep guttural, I might still have continued to her the communication of my sentiments; this pitch of voice (the guttural) depending, I find, not upon the current of the breath, but upon a certain spasmodic action of the muscles of the throat.