| ...slowly, while I stood waiting to hear my death-warrant. “Very regular,” shortly spoke the doctor; “triflingly accelerated. Do you feel any pain?” “None at all.” “Nothing the matter with you; go home and go to bed.” “But -- is there -- is there -- no -- danger of -- apoplexy?” “Bah!” said the doctor; and, having delivered himself of this very Abernethy-like opinion of my case, he lay down again. My hand was on |
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check me if I talked loudly or immoderately while in a state of fantasia among persons from whom I wished to conceal my state, I caught myself shouting and singing from very ecstasy, and reproached him with a neglect of his friendly office. I could not believe him when he assured me that I had not uttered an audible word. The intensity of the inward emotion had affected the external through the internal ear. |
the knob, when he stopped me with, “Wait a minute; I’ll give you a powder to carry with you, and if you get frightened again after you leave me, you can take it as a sedative. Step out on the landing, if you please, and call my servant.”
I did so, and my voice seemed to reverberate like thunder from every recess in the whole building. I was terrified at the noise I had made. I learned in after days that this impression is only one of the many due to the intense susceptibility of the sensorium as produced by hasheesh. At one time, having asked a friend to |
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I returned and stood at the foot of the doctor’s bed. All was perfect silence in the room, and had been perfect darkness also but for the small lamp which I held in my hand to light the preparation of the powder when it should come. And now a still sublimer mystery began to enwrap me. I stood in a remote chamber at the top of a colossal building, and the whole fabric beneath me was steadily growing into the air. Higher than the topmost pinnacle of Bel’s Babylonish temple -- higher than Ararat -- on, on forever into the lonely dome of God’s infinite universe we towered ceaselessly. The years flew |