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, ftft t-HtE JD.E AD5EE. : L-^gk'rttfefl...
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BOOKS ON OUR TABLE. The, Jew of Denmark....
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We should do our utmost to encourage the...
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MAGNETIC EVENINGS AT HOME. Letteb II.*—T...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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1 . . . -I ¦ ' - . , -- ,.\ .J.. - . •;¦...
" -I teve talent and knowledge enough to fliraiah a dwelling for friendship , but " ^¦ ^^^ ft' & S ^ Ztt . ^ ' *^* nnnversaSon with men . They are astonished at our instincts . They do not see MS ^^^^ ts ^^^^^^ ^¦^ Mi ^^^^ m ^^^^ of thoughf 5 is . in usT Because we seemed to know ' , they think we can tell all ; and , finding we can tell so little , lose faith in their first opinion of us , which , naihless , was true , '" Again : —
"' I like to hear you express your sense of my defects . The word ' arrogance ' does not , indeed , appear to me to be just ; probably because I do not understand what you mean . But in due time I doubtless shall ; for so repeatedly have you used it , that it must stand for something real in my large and rich , yet irregular and unclarified nature . But though I like to hear you , as I say , and think somehow your reproof does me good , by myself I return to my native bias , and feel as if there was plenty of room in the universe for my faults , and aaif Icould not spend time in thinking of them , when so many things interest me more . I have no defiance or coldness , however , as to these spiritual facts which I do not know ; but I must follow my own law , and bide my time , even if , like CEdipus , I should return a criminal , blind and outcast , to ask aid from the gods . Such possibilities , I confess ; give me great awe ; for I have more sense than most , of the tragic depths that may open suddenly in the life . '"
, Ftft T-Hte Jd.E Ad5ee. : L-^Gk'rttfefl...
, ftft t-HtE JD . E AD 5 EE . : L- ^ gk'rttfefl ^? :
Books On Our Table. The, Jew Of Denmark....
BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . The , Jew of Denmark . By M . Goldschmidt . George Boutledge . Chambers' Pocket Miscellany . W . and E . Chambers . The If ambler . Barns and Lambert , The Portrait Gallery . W . S . Orr and Co . The Half Century ; its History , Political andSocial . By W . Wilts . C . Gilpm . Pinto Translated , by Burges . ' H . G . Bohn . Geology and Scripture . By P . Smith . II . G . Bohn . Thf Battles of the Navy . By Joseph Allen , Esq . H . G . Bohn . Crime and Insanity ; their Causes , Connexions , and Consequences . By E . M . Burnett , M . D . ' Samuel Highly . The Rise and Progress of 'Rational Education in England . By Eichard Church . John Chapman . History of the American Revolution . By George Bancroft . Vol . I . Biehard Bentley . Mights and Duties of Property . By John Sangster . . Whittaker and Co . The Rambler . A Catholic Journal and Eeview . _ Burns and Lambert . 3 fom . Guizot ; or , Democracy , Oligarchy , and Monarchy . By C . Laelius . Chas . / Fox . Discourses on Various Subjects . By Samuel Bailey . Longman and Co . The Upper Ten Thousand . Beprinted from Fraser ' s Magazine . John W , Parker & Son . Life of Constantine the Great . By Joseph Fletcher . Albert Coekshaw . T } ie Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds . By S . W . Beechey . H . G . Bohn . Some Thoughts about the School of the Future . By the Eev . Foster Barham Zincke . ¦' < =. ¦ - - L . 6 i ) gman and Co . A Treatise on the Sugar and Sugar Apparatus of the Great Mbhibition ^ By J . Scoffren . — ' _ -Cooke and Whitley .
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We Should Do Our Utmost To Encourage The...
We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourages itself . —Goethe .
Magnetic Evenings At Home. Letteb Ii.*—T...
MAGNETIC EVENINGS AT HOME . Letteb II . *—To G . H . Lewes . The experiment to which I referred , at the close of my last letter , as being of a more extraordinary nature than any we had yet beheld , was this : — Our host proposed to make V exhibit all the effects of having taken poison—any poison I chose to indicate- —by magnetizing a glass of water , with the will that she should believe , on drinking it , that she was really drinking a poisonous liquid . Before , however , the experiment began , he made two provisos .. The first was , that I should select no poison , the
effects of which were immediately fatal when it was taken in ordinary doses ; the second , that instead of whispering the name of the poison , chosen to him , or afterwards to my friends , I should write it down on a piece of paper , and only show that paper to him and to them . The Count insisted on this arrangement , as tending to prevent the possibility of any deception , in pase we might still suspect that V could overhear what was said in the room , even when none of us were placed in communication with her . These preliminaries agreed on , a sheet of paper was placed before me , and a glass of water was procured from a jug standing on the sideboard , out of which some of the persons present had already been drinking .
The poison I chose , and wrote down , was Strychnine . In the first p lace , I knew that this poison was not immediately fatal ; and , in the second place , I was aware that " cases" exhibiting its effects were rare in medical practice , and that , consequently , those effects must be little , if at all , known to " the general public . " When the Count read what I had written , he shook his head , as a sign that he was unacquainted with the nature of Strychnine , and asked me whether I was quite sure that I had strictly complied with the terms of his first proviso : if I had any cloubt on the subject , lie said he would decline pursuing the experiment ; for he dared not assume a responsibility which , under thosp circumstances , might perhaps lead to a fatal result . I reassured Mjm on this point ; and he then magnetized the glass of water without further delay .
When it was given to V she smelt it ; an expression of disgust came over her face ; and she refused to drink . It was only after the Count had made several passes over her , and had insisted on her obeying him , that she © puld be induced to taste the water . Then , in obedience to the irresistible influence of his will on hers , she drank a very small quantity , with extreme reluctance , and with a visible contraction of the thiroat after each ? Sec leader , No . 05 .
sip . When " the water was taken away , I put myself in ctsmriiunicatioh with her , and asked what was the taste of the liquid ; she had just ijeen imbibing . She answered ^ rather faintly : « -A 5 tf intensely bitter ; taste . " , At the same moment , I looked carefully at her complexion ^ ¦!^ d ; tpachi ed - - . h- j hand and cheek : as yet , there was no appearance whateve * of unusujj paleness , and the temperature of her skin was at its natural degree of warmth . ¦ ¦;¦ ¦ ' ¦ ¦¦ ¦•' . •'¦ ¦ ' . '¦ ' . ¦¦ •;; ¦' ¦ , ' ¦ -: ¦¦ ¦ ' ¦ . ' . " ' ' . ¦¦ ' ¦¦ ' ; , Soon , tvhile . we watched her , we saw that she begaii to move uneasily from side to side in her chair . Then she took her handkerchief , ana ^ pecl her lips with it ; repeating this action incessantlyy t ^ ° 8 ^ th ^ re Was not the slightest moisture about her mouth : Her complexion ' got paler and paler , until at last it grew perfectly livid ^ -livid to her : very lips . I touched
her face now : her skin had become cold and clammy . I took her hand ' it felt like the hand of a corpse . Ere long ^ -while ' she still wiped her mouth from time to time , and still moved painfully fromside to side in her chair—^ -spasmodic contractions appeared about-her brow and lips / , and spread to her chest , her shoulders , and her arms . Her legsV too ^ began to stretch out rigidly before her ; and she complained * in ajfaint , gaspingwhisper , of violent pains in the abdomen , and of a disposition to vomit ; We lifted her eyelids , and found that her eyeballs wer dilated ; the pupils being in . sensible , and turned far upward . The dull , glassy glare of the distorted eye was positively fearful to behold . What further symptoms might have soon appeared , it is impossible to say ; for , at this point ; we all agreed that the experiment must stop . It was then about ten miiiutes from the time when she had first tasted the magnetized water .
She was relieved—but very slowly—of the pain in her stomach , by passes ; and after that , complained of . a sensation of coldness and numbness in her legs . When this also had been removed , she begged for something to quench a great thirst that she felt ; and being asked what drink she wished for , answered ; " Lukewarm milk / ' The Count poured but a fresh glass of water , magnetized it , and gave it to her .- She eagerly drank it off at a draught ; and > in answer to a question from me * said that she was drinking lukewarm " milk . After this , she sank back in the chair ; and , desiring to be left to repose , appeared to fall immediately into a deep sleep . Before she was restored to this state of tranquillity , she had engaged the magnetizer ' s unremitting attention for double the time he had ever occupied before in recovering her from experiments of a similar nature .
The next morning , I consulted Taylor ' s Medical Jurisprudence ( Ed . 3 , 1849 , pp . 181—183 ) , to ascertain exactly what were the symptoms of poisoning by Strychnine . For the information of persons unacquainted with chemistry * it must be premised , that ^ Strychnine is nothing but a concentration of the poisonous properties of NuxVomica , ' which Taylor states to have " an intensely bitter taste "—the very taste , observe , ' that V— - — complained of to me . The first case related of poisoning by Strychnine , is that of a young man , aged seventeen , who took forty grains ( 1 ); and died in an hour and a half after swallowing this tremendous dose of poison , the first symptoms havirig appeared in a quarter of an hour . The second case is the case of Dr . Warner , who died in fourteen minutes frorn the
effect of the smallest dose on record—half-a-grain . A third instance is then cited of a person who recovered from a dose of seven grains . Thus it appears , from medical evidence , that the quantity of Strychnine required to destroy life , the time when symptoms of havirig taken it first appear , and the period that elapses before a dose becomes fatal , vary so much iu different persons , as to defy any previous computation whatever . Among the symptoms exhibited by the young man who took the dose of forty grains , Taylor describes—lividness of the skin , prominence of the
eyeballs , dilatation and insensibility of the pupils , and spasms of the chest . Among the symptoms of poisoning by Nux Vomica ( which the author of Medical Jurisprudence informs iis " closely resemble" those of poisoning by Strychnine ) are mentioned—vomiting , pain in the abdomen , and a stretching out of the limbs . We have here , then , no less than seven symptoms , detailed on medical authority , as symptoms produced by taking the poison that I wrote down for our magnetic experience , every one of which we saty exhibited by V . Others of a more aggravated nature might have appeared , had we not stopped the experiment when we did . I , for one , never
desire to witness its repetition , under any circumstances whatever . Now , how are we to account for such a phenomenon as I have jiist described ? People who keep a large stock of ready-made assertions always on hand to answer any emergency , would solve the mystery at once , by saying that V was acting . Setting aside , for mere argument sake , the weight of evidence which the character of the young lady herself , and oi the friends under whose care she was living , would bring to bear against the possibility of any deception being practised by her , —what am I obliged to belieVe , if I believe that she was acting ? First , I must believe that she is the most consummate actress in Europe ; for I have never seen , on thP
Stage , any simulation of the physical effects of poison-taking comparable for a moment to her simulation . Rachel ' s performance in the last act of " Adripnno Lecouvreur" was , in regard to those ports of it which were confined to the simple representation of the outward effect of poison on the human frame , tricky and artificial by comparison with "V " . ¦ ¦» ' ' . '*« - Secondly , remembering that I saw with my own eyes the livid paleness come over V—' s face , and felt with my own hands the clammy coldness of liOTfc * must believe that , at little moro than a minuted notice , she could wt ^ W all colour from her cheeks , and < tct away the natural vital warmth from her han d *—a perfection of histrionic art to which no other actress , fron * ** '
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 14, 1852, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_14021852/page/20/
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