26 Affectional Alchemy.
with malignant poison, by which I do not here mean syphilis, but I
do mean that worse poison resultant from chemical incompatibility,
mental and affectional disgust and repulsion, which leave ulcers and
corrosions in their train, with death in the foreground. Gentlemen
M. D.'s, here's the origin of evil; for even if the husband is not old,
but only a hellion to her, she's your patient straightway, and you
have a fine chance for the sale of lotions, washes, pessaries, support¬
ers, and all the other vast paraphernalia born of non-love, "in the
auld house at hame."
Birth months. Children conceived in May, June, July, August and
September, and who, therefore, are born in February, March, April,
May, and June, are, unquestionably, better constituted and will live
longer, have more character and power than when the double events
occur in other months ; because nature and weather are more propi¬
tious at the start. Conceptions occurring in the morning hours are a
myriad degrees better than when that event occurs at other periods.
A person's shadow on the wall in a room, by lamp-light, will re¬
veal more of that party's real character than all the phrenology ex¬
tant, and in its minute phases, too ; just as a peculiar smile, observa¬
tion, movement, or tone of voice will sometimes tell in a second
more of a person's real self, than an acquaintance of fifty intimate
years would otherwise.
Gender in the human being is a very different thing from gender
in the animate kingdoms below the grade of man. In the beasts it
means propagation, mainly for food purposes ; but in man it stands
for, and implies, a great deal more, as will be seen hereinafter.
At this point I wish to pick a flaw or two in the reasonings of
the popular physiologists and phrenologists of the day, every one of
whom urge their moral pleas mainly upon the ground that the mar¬
ital-functional nuptive rite of the human being is precisely on a par
with the creative act of beasts ; that is, that God intended it in man
as in animals, to be solely and only a propagative function, — that,
and nothing more. It is for generative ends only, and the nervous
state precedent to, and succeeding it, is but the natural spur to the
God-foreseen result; therefore, say they, the sacred nuptium is per¬
missible only when both parents desire to add one more unit to the
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