Affect'ion a I Alchemy. n
loaded revolver in his pocket, bade him swiftly traverse the 1,100
miles intervening betwixt him and his deep revenge. This done, I
went to a grocery hard by, to drink beer to drown out the agony felt
for the man, — the detestation of the woman. " Mail proposes," but
God upsets his calculations; or Destiny does. So now. on my way
to Grambrins Halle, I encountered my little friend, the German
child, at play. She strangely interested me; and I left the Ilallc
with but one glass, where I had intended to drink at least a dozen.
The child saved me I Returning, I caught her up, seated her
jauntily on my head, and marched back to the lonely house on the
hill, where I threw myself on the lounge, kissed this little child good-
by, and, as she ran off trippingly home, at her little brother's call,
who was just then having dreadful trouble with his rabbits, I caught
sight of a scintillant flash of white light issuant from her head, like
the radiant gleam of a peerless diamond, when all the lamps are
brightly burning ; and a glowing, streaming iridescence flowed from
her lips. I had drawn her to me, and pressed her rosv. childish
face to mine, inhaling the balmy aroma of her pure, fresh, joyous
soul; and a portion of the roseate fire of her sweet lips had clung to
mine. I saw it, like a thin cloud of opalescence, waving gently to
and fro. as I moved my head, or breathed. I began to study the
meaning of a kiss.
There are but few among the many who know the meaning of a
kiss: — or that the soul, from its seat in the brain, is in telegraphic
unity with the lips. — affectional, friendly, filial, parental, general, in
the upper one ; sensuous, magnetic, passional, in the lower ; nor that,
when loving lips meet lips that love, there is a magnetic discharge of
soul-flame, and each party gives and receive, large measures of mag¬
netic life and fluid love at the instant of impact or contact, which
measures arc greater or less according to the love-fulness or empti¬
ness of each respectively. While pondering on this, and marvelling
at the beautiful irradiation alluded to above. I chanced to recur in
thought to the mirror scene, and to the woman and the man. the
■wicrdly strange phantorama already described ; again that strange
numbness of the outer being came over me, and in another instant I
lay there, rapt, entranced, transfigured, and for the time being was as
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