My Library

convinced thousands that harlotry is the straightest road to heaven; nor had Noyes founded his huge religious brothel in the centre of the State, contaminating the country for leagues around; and the handy system of ghostology, with its hundred truths and thousand falsehoods, had not then afforded a ready explanation of mysteries such as those I have recounted; nor had any man dared claim to be the confidential secretary of Almighty God. “On the night in question our conversation became, if possible, more interesting and absorbing than on the first occasion, owing to the novel fillip it had then received. So absorbed did I become during the evening, that on one or two occasions I partially lost myself in a sort of semi-mesmeric coma, which gradually deepened as the discussion waxed warmer, until my lower limbs grew cold, and a chilling numbness crept upon me, creating such a terror that I resolved to make my condition known, even at the risk of interrupting the discussion. “I made the trial, and found, to my consternation, that I could not utter a syllable—I could not move an inch. Horror! The company were so engrossed with the matter before them, that no notice was taken of any change that might have been perceptible in me; nor did one person there suspect that I was not attentively drinking in the discourse.