Page:Randolph, Paschal Beverly; Eulis! the history of love.djvu/14

Rh like watches, razors, locomotives and women, are very set in their ways, and will not work unless well treated, and coaxed besides; then they operate well enough, as did the one alluded to. Its power ranged to the aerial spaces above, and to the vaulted deeps below; and on its surface the dead could, and often did, cast cognizable pictures of themselves and surroundings then and then again. On the morning alluded to, as I breathed upon it, a thick, heavy, black, portentous cloud obscured its face, followed by a silvery sheen, indicative of coming trouble, hatred, folly, error, succeeded by happiness and contentment; but I actually forgot all that, nor recalled it till after the approaching drama was ended,—a drama strange and weird, fraught with pain unutterable, inexpressible, almost unendurable; yet whose results or fruitage was as ripe pomegranates are to the thirsty pilgrims, or the cool, bubbling waters to the parched lips of the Arab on the burning sands of Sahara. Little did I dream that the strange experience was full of true light to others than myself; yet such it is, and was; and with grateful heart I thank the Most Compassionate God, the Ineffable Lord, that I was found worthy to become the vessel for the conveyance of so grand a lesson to my brethren of the wide and wasteful world.

In an instant, as my eyes fell on it—that wondrous glyphæ—the outer world sight receded, and the soul-sight came in play. Child, table, chairs, lounge—all were gone and unheeded, and on the face of that marvellous glass I beheld a scene which at the time, and for six weeks afterwards, I religiously believed was at that very instant being enacted far away, in, to the man in Toledo, dreadful reality. The sequel—far along in this book—will show whether it was the shadow of an enacted fact, or a figment of fancy woven of mist, and conjured up out of the cellars of suspicion. I loved the man, at all events; hence what I saw froze my blood with horror, and made my nerves fairly tingle with excitement and pain. I saw the lady, whom the loved so well, and for whom he yearned, and mourned, and wept bitter tears, revealed before the eyes of my soul. She was just emerging from a dormitory, evidently, judging by appearances, both a dishonest and dishonored wife and woman. She was gaily chatting with her paramour, a gallant young fellow, who stood near her,