The Spirit LandEmmons, Samuel B. (Samuel Bulfinch)
Religion
The Spirit Land
Emmons, Samuel B. (Samuel Bulfinch)
Occultism -- Early works to 1900; Spiritualism
Miss Blandy, who was executed many years ago for poisoning her father,
persisted in affirming that she thought the powder given her by her
villanous lover, Cranston, to administer to him, was a "love powder,"
which was to conciliate her father's affection to her lover. She met
her death with this asseveration; and her dying request, to be buried
close to her father, seems a corroborating proof, that though she was
certainly the cause of his premature death, yet she was not, in the
blackest sense of the word, his wilful murderer.
We quote the following lines from Herrick's Hesperides:--
A CHARM OR AN ALLAY FOR LOVE.
"If so be a toad be laid
In a sheepskin newly flayed,
And that tied to a man, 'twill sever
Him and his affections ever"
EFFECTS OF A BELIEF IN A GHOST.
Whenever a real ghost appears,--by which we mean some man or woman
dressed up to frighten another,--if the supernatural character of the
apparition has been for a moment believed, the effects on the spectator
have always been injurious--sometimes producing convulsions, idiocy,
madness, or even instantaneous death. The celebrated Allston, the
painter, when in England, related the following incident to his friend
Coleridge, the poet: "It was, I think," said he, "in the University of
Cambridge, near Boston, that a certain youth took it into his wise head
to convert a Tom Paine-ish companion of his by appearing as a ghost
before him. He accordingly dressed himself up in the usual way, having
previously extracted the ball from the pistol which always lay near the
head of his friend's bed. Upon first awakening, and seeing the
apparition, the youth that was to be frightened very coolly looked his
companion, the ghost, in the face, and said, 'I know you; this is a
good joke; but you see I am not frightened. Now you may vanish.' The
ghost stood still. 'Come,' said the youth, 'that is enough. I shall get
angry; away!' Still the ghost moved not. 'By heavens!' ejaculated the
young man, 'if you do not, in three minutes, go away, I'll shoot you.'
He waited the time, deliberately levelled his pistol, fired, and with a
scream at the immovability of the figure, became convulsed, and soon
afterwards died. The very instant he believed it to be a ghost, his
human nature fell before it."
THE INVISIBLE LADY.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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