Green Tea, part 2

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings were in
the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. Green Tea by Joseph Sheridan le'fanu
read by Chris Turtle, Part two seven The Journey first stage.

(00:32):
When the omnibus drove on and I was alone upon
the road, I looked carefully round to ascertain whether the
monkey had followed me. To my indescribable relief, I saw
it nowhere. I can't describe easily what a shock I
had received, and my sense of genuine gratitude on finding myself,
as I supposed, quite rid of it. I had got

(00:53):
out a little before we reached this house two or
three hundred steps. A brick wall runs along the footpath,
and inside the wall as a hedge of yew or
some dark garden evergreen of that kind, and within that
again the row of fine trees, which you may have
remarked as you came. The brick wall is about as
high as my shoulder, and happening to raise my eyes,

(01:15):
I saw the monkey with that stooping gait on all fours,
walking or creeping close beside me. On top of the wall.
I stopped, looking at it with a feeling of loathing
and horror. As I stopped, so did it. It sat
up on the wall with its long hands on its knees,
looking at me. There was not light enough to see

(01:36):
it much more than an outline, nor was it dark
enough to bring the peculiar light of its eyes into
strong relief. I still saw, however, that red foggy light
plainly enough. It did not show its teeth nor exhibit
any sign of irritation, but seemed jaded and sulky, and
was observing me steadily. I drew back into the middle

(01:57):
of the road. It was an unconscious recoil, and there
I stood still looking at it. It did not move.
With an instinctive determination to try something anything, I turned
about and walked briskly towards town with a scance look,
all the time watching the movements of the beast. It
crept swiftly along the wall at exactly my pace, where

(02:20):
the wall ends near the end of the road. It
came down, and, with a wiry spring or two, brought
itself close to my feet and continued to keep up
with me. As I quickened my pace. It was at
my left side, so close to my leg that I
felt every moment as if I should tread upon it.
The road was quite deserted and silent, and it was
darker every moment. I stopped, dismayed and bewildered, turning as

(02:43):
I did so the other way, I mean towards this house,
away from which I had been walking. When I stood still,
the monkey drew back to a distance of I suppose
about five or sixty yards, and remained stationary watching me.
I had been more agitated than I have said. I
had read, of course, as everyone has something about spectral illusions,

(03:04):
as you physicians term the phenomena of such cases. I
considered my situation and looked my misfortune in the face.
These affections I had read are sometimes transitory and sometimes obstinate.
I had read of cases in which the appearance, at
first harmless, had step by step degenerated into something direful
and insupportable, and ended by wearing its victim out. Still,

(03:27):
as I stood there but for my bestial companion, quite alone,
I tried to comfort myself by repeating again and again
the assurance the bigness purely disease a well known physical
affection as distinct as small pox or neuralgia. Doctors are
all agreed on that philosophy demonstrates it. I must not
be a fool. I have been sitting up too late,

(03:48):
and I dare say my digestion is quite wrong, and
with God's help, I shall be all right. And this
is but a symptom of nervous dyspepsia. Did I believe
all this, not one word of it, No more more
than any other miserable being ever did, who was once
seized and riveted in the Satanic captivity. Against my convictions,
I might say my knowledge, I was simply bullying myself

(04:09):
into a false courage. I now walked homeward. I had
only a few hundred yards to go. I had forced
myself into a sort of resignation, but I had not
got over the sickening shock and the flurry of the
first certainty of my misfortune. I made up my mind
to pass the night at home. The brute moved close

(04:30):
beside me, and I fancied there was some sort of
anxious drawing towards the house, which one sees in tired
horses or dogs sometimes as they come towards home. I
was afraid to go into town. I was afraid of
anyone seeing and recognizing me. I was conscious of an
irrepressible agitation in my manner. Also, I was afraid of
any violent change in my habits, such as going to

(04:51):
a place of amusement or walking from home in order
to fatigue myself. At the hall door, it waited till
I mounted the steps, and when the door was opened,
entered with me. I drank no tea that night. I
got cigars and some brandy and water. My idea was
that I should act upon my material system, and, by
living for a while in sensation apart from thought, sent

(05:14):
myself forcibly, as it were, into a new groove. I
came up here to this drawing room. I sat just there.
The monkey then got up on a small table, and
then stood there. It looked dazed and languid and irrepressible.
Uneasiness as to its movements. Kept my eyes always upon it.
Its eyes were half closed, but I could see them glow.

(05:36):
It was looking steadily at me in all situations, at
all hours. It is awake and looking at me. That
never changes. I shall not continue in detail my narrative
of this particular night I shall describe rather the phenomena
of the first year, which never varied. Essentially. I shall
describe the monkey as it appeared in daylight in the dark,

(05:58):
as you shall presently hear, there are peculiarities. It is
a small monkey, perfectly black. It has only one peculiarity,
a character of malignity, unfathomable malignity. During the first year
it looked sullen and sick. But this character of intense
malice and vigilance was always underlying that surly languor. During

(06:20):
all that time it acted as if on a plan
of giving me as little trouble, as consistent with watching me.
Its eyes were never off me. I have never lost
sight of it except in my sleep, light or dark,
day or night, since it came here, excepting when it
would draws for some weeks to time, unaccountably, in total dark,
it is as visible as in daylight. I do not

(06:41):
mean merely its eyes. It is as visible distinctly in
a halo that resembles a glow of red embers, and
which accompanies it in all its movements. When it leaves
me for a time, it is always at night in
the dark, and in the same way it grows at
first uneasy and then furious, and then advances towards me,
grinning and shaking, its paws clenched. And at the same

(07:03):
time there comes the appearance of fire in the grate.
I never have any fire. I can't sleep in the
room where there is any. It draws nearer and nearer
to the chimney, quivering, it seems with rage, And when
it furiy rises to the highest pitch, it springs into
the grate and up the chimney, and I see it
no more. When first this happened, I thought I was released.

(07:25):
I was now a new man. A day passed, a night,
and no return, A blessed week, A week another week.
I was always on my knees, doctor Hesselius, always thanking
God and praying. A whole month passed of liberty. But
on a sudden it was with me again. Eight the

(07:48):
second stage. It was with me, and the malice, which
before was torpid under a sullen exterior, was now active.
It was perfectly unchanged in every other respect. This new
energy was apparent in its activity and its looks, and
soon in other ways. For a time you will understand
the change was shown only in an increased vivacity and

(08:10):
an air of menace, as if it was always brooding
over some atrocious plan. Its eyes, as before, were never
off me. Is it here now, I asked, No, he replied,
it has been absent exactly a fortnight and a day
fifteen days. It has sometimes been away so long as
nearly two months, once for three. Its absence always exceeds

(08:32):
a fortnight, although it may be by but a single
day fifteen days having passed since I saw at last,
it may return now at any moment. Is its return,
I asked, accompanied by any particular manifestation? Nothing, No, he said,
it is simply with me. Again. On lifting my eyes
from a book or turning my head, I see it

(08:54):
as usual looking at me, and then it remains as before,
for its appointed time. I have never told so much
and so minutely before to anyone. I perceived that he
was agitated and looking like death, and he repeatedly applied
his handkerchief to his forehead. I suggested that he might
be tired, and told them that I would call with

(09:15):
pleasure in the morning, but he said, no, if you
don't mind hearing it all. Now, I have got so far,
and I should prefer making one effort of it. When
I spoke to doctor Harley, I had nothing like so
much to tell. You are a philosophic physician. You give
spirit its proper rank. If this thing is real, he paused,
looking at me with agitated inquiry. We can discuss it

(09:38):
by and by, and very fully. I will give you
all I think, I answered, after an interval. Well, very well,
if it is anything real, I say, it is prevailing
little by little and drawing me more interiorly into hell
optic nerves he talked of, Oh, well, there are other
nerves of communication. May God Almighty help me. You shall

(10:00):
hear its power of action. I tell you had increased
its malice became in a way aggressive. About two years ago,
some questions as were pending between me and the Bishop.
Having been settled, I went down to my parish in Warwickshire,
anxious to find occupation in my profession. I was not
prepared for what happened, although I have since thought I
might have apprehended something like it. The reason of my

(10:23):
saying so is this. He was beginning to speak with
a great deal more effort and reluctance, and sighed often,
and it seemed at times nearly overcome. But at this
time his manner was not agitated. It was more like
that of a sinking patient who has given himself up. Yes,
but I will first tell you about Kenless, my parish.

(10:45):
It was with me when I left this place for Dolbridge.
It was my silent traveling companion. And it remained with
me at the vicarage. When I entered on the discharge
of my duties. Another change took place. The thing exhibited
in a trop vicious determination to thwart me. It was
with me in the church, in the reading desk, in
the pulpits, within the communion rails. At last it reached

(11:07):
this extremity that while I was reading to the congregation,
it would spring upon the open book and squat there
so that I was unable to see the page. This
happened more than once I left Drawbridge. For a time
I placed myself in doctor Harley's hands. I did everything
he told me. He gave my case a great deal
of thought. It interested he him think he seemed successful.

(11:31):
For nearly three months I was perfectly free from a return.
I began to think I was safe. With his full assent,
I returned to the Dollbridge. I traveled in a chaise.
I was in good spirits. I was more, I was
happy and grateful. I was returning, as I thought, delivered
from a dreadful hallucination, to the scene of duties which
I longed to enter upon. It was a beautiful, sunny evening.

(11:55):
Everything looked serene and cheerful, and I was delighted. I
remember looking out of the window to see the spire
of my church at Kenlis among the trees, at the
point where one has the earliest view of it. It
is exactly where the stream that bounds the parish passes
under the road by a culvert, and where it emerges
at the roadside, a stone with an old inscription is placed.

(12:16):
As we passed this point, I drew my head in
and sat down, and in the corner of the chaise
was the monkey. For a moment I felt faint, and
then quite wild with despair and horror. I called to
the driver and got out and sat down at the
road side and prayed to God silently for mercy. A

(12:38):
despairing resignation supervened. My companion was with me as I
re entered the vicarage. The same persecution followed. After a
short struggle, I submitted, and soon I left the place
I told you. He said that the beast has before
this become in certain ways aggressive. I will explain a little.

(13:01):
It seemed to be actuated by intense and increasing fury.
Whenever I said my prayers, or even meditated prayer. It
amounts at last to a dreadful interruption. You will ask,
how could a silent and material phantom effect that it was? Thus,
whenever I meditated praying, it was always before me, and
nearer and nearer. It used to spring on a table,

(13:22):
on the back of a chair, on the chimney piece,
and slowly to swing itself from side to side, looking
at me all the time. There is in its motion
an indefinable power to dissipate thought and to contract one's
attention to that monotony, till the ideas shrink, as it were,
to a point, and at last to nothing. And unless
I have started up and shaken off the catalepsy, I
have felt as if my mind were on the point

(13:43):
of losing itself. There are other ways, he sighed heavily. Thus,
for instance, while I pray with my eyes closed, it
comes closer and closer, and I see it. I know
it is not to be accounted for physically, but I
do actually see it though my lids are closed, and
so it rocks my mind, as it were, and overpowers me,
and I am obliged to rise from my knees. If

(14:06):
you had yourself ever known this, you would be acquainted
with desperation. Nine the third stage. I see, doctor Hessilius,
that you don't lose one word of my statement. I
need not ask you to listen specifically to what I
am now going to tell you. They talk of the

(14:26):
optic nerves and of spectral illusions, as if the organ
of sight was the only point assailable by the influences
that have fastened upon me. I know better, for two
years in my direful case, that limitation prevailed. But as
food is taken in softly at the lips and then
brought under the teeth, as the tip of the little
finger caught in a mill crank will draw in the hand,

(14:47):
and the arm and the whole body. So the miserable mortal,
who has been once caught firmly by the end of
the finest fiber of his nerve, is drawn in and
in by the enormous machinery of hell until he is
as I am, Yes, doctor as I am. For while
I talk to you and implore relief, I feel that
my prayer is for the impossible, and my pleading with
the inexorable. I endeavored to calm his visibly increasing agitation

(15:11):
and told him that he must not despair. While we talked,
the night had overtaken us the Filmy moonlight was wide
over the scene, which the window commanded, and I said,
perhaps you would prefer having candles. The light, you know,
is odd. I should wish you as much as possible
under your usual conditions while I make my diagnosis. Should

(15:33):
I call it otherwise? I don't care. All lights are
the same to me, he said, except when I read
or write. I care not if night were perpetual. I
am going to tell you what happened about a year ago.
The thing began to speak to me. Speak, How do
you mean? Speak as a man? Does do you mean? Yes?

(15:56):
Speak in words and consecutive sentences, with perfect coher and articulation.
But there is a peculiarity. It is not like the
tone of a human voice. It is not by my ears.
It reaches me. It comes like a singing through my head.
This faculty. The power of speaking to me will be
my undoing. It won't let me pray, It interrupts me

(16:18):
with dreadful blasphemies. I dare not go on. I could not,
Oh doctor, can the skill and thoughts and prayers of
man avail me nothing. You must promise me, my dear sir,
not to trouble yourself with unnecessarily exciting thoughts. Confine yourself
strictly to the narrative of facts and recollect above all
that even if the thing that infests you be as

(16:39):
you seem to suppose, a reality, with an actual independent
life and will, yet it can have no power to
hurt you unless it be given from above. Its access
to your senses depends mainly upon your physical condition, that is,
under God, your comfort and reliance. We are all alike environed.
It is only that in your case, the paries, the
veil of the flesh, the screen is a little out

(17:02):
of repair, and sights and sounds are transmitted. We must
enter on a new course, Sir, be encouraged. I'll give
to night to the careful consideration of the whole case.
You are very good, sir, You think it's worth trying.
You don't give me quite up. But sir, you don't know.
It is gaining such an influence over me. It orders
me about. It is such a tyrant, and I'm growing

(17:24):
so helpless. May God deliver me? It orders you about,
of course you mean by speech. Yes, yes, it is
always urging me to crimes, to injure others or myself.
You see, doctor, the situation is urgent. It is. Indeed,
when I was in Shropshire a few weeks ago, mister

(17:44):
Jennings was speaking rapidly and trembling, now, holding my arm
with one hand and looking in my face. I went
out one day with a party of friends for a walk.
My persecutor, I tell you, was with me at the time.
I lagged behind the rest the country near the deed,
you know is beautiful. A path happened to lie near
a coal mine, and at the verge of the word
is a perpendicular shaft, they say, one hundred and fifty

(18:07):
feet deep. My niece had remained behind with me. She knows,
of course, nothing of the nature of my sufferings. She knew, however,
that I had been ill and was low, and she
remains to prevent me being quite alone as we loitered
slowly on together. The brute that accompanied me was urging
me to throw myself down the shaft. I tell you, now, sir,
think of it. The one consideration that saved me from

(18:29):
that hideous death was the fear lest the shock of
witnessing the occurrence should be too much for the poor girl.
I asked her to go on and take her walk
with her friends, saying that I could go on no farther.
She made excuses, and the more I urged her, the
firmer she became. She looked doubtful and frightened. I supposed
there was something in my looks or manner that alarmed her.
But she would not go, and that literally saved me.

(18:52):
You had no idea, sir, that a living man could
be made so abject a slave of Satan, he said,
with a ghastly groan and a shudder. Was a pause here,
and I said, you are preserved. Nevertheless, it was the
act of God. You are in his hands and in
the power of no other being. Be therefore confident for
the future. Ten home. I made him have candles lighted,

(19:20):
and saw the room looking cheery and inhabited. Before I
left him, I told him that he must regard his
illness strictly as one dependent on physical, though subtle, physical causes.
I told him that he had evidence of God's care
and love in the deliverance which he had just described,
and that I had perceived with pain that he seemed
to regard its peculiar features as indicating that he'd been

(19:40):
delivered over to spiritual reprobation. Than such a conclusion, nothing
could be, I insisted less warranted are not only so,
but more contrary to facts as disclosed in his mysterious
deliverance from that murderous influence during his Shropshire excursion. First,
his niece had been retained by his side, without his
intending to keep near him, And secondly, there had been

(20:02):
infused into his mind an irresistible repugnance to execute the
dreadful suggestion in her presence. As I reasoned this point
with him, mister Jennings wept. He seemed comforted one promise
I exacted, which was that should the monkey at any
time return, I should be sent for immediately, and repeating
my assurance that I would give neither time nor thoughts

(20:23):
to any other subject until I had thoroughly investigated his case.
And that tomorrow he should hear the result. I took
my leave. Before getting into the carriage, I told the
servant that his master was far from well, and that
he should make a point of frequently looking into his room.
My own arrangements I made with a view of being
quite secure from interruption. I merely called at my lodgings,

(20:46):
and with a traveling desk and carpet bag, set off
in a hackney carriage for an inn about two miles
out of town called the Horns, a very quiet and
comfortable house with good thick walls, And there I resolved,
without the possibilit of intrusion or distraction, to devote some
hours of the night in my comfortable sitting room to
mister Jennings's case, and so much of the morning as

(21:07):
it might require. There occurs here a careful note of
doctor Hessilia's opinion upon the case, and of the habits, diet,
and medicines which he prescribed. It is curious, some persons
would say mystical, But on the whole I doubt whether
it would sufficiently interest a reader of the kind I
am likely to meet with to warrant its being here reprinted.

(21:29):
The whole letter was plainly written at the inn where
he had hid himself for the occasion. The letter is
dated from his town Lodgings. I left town for the
inn where I slept last night at half past nine,
and did not arrive at my room in town until
one o'clock this afternoon. I found a letter in mister
Jennings's hand upon my table. It had not come by post,

(21:49):
and on inquiry I learnt that mister jennings servant had
brought it. And on learning that I was not to
return until to day and that no one could tell
him my address, he seemed very uncomfortable and said that
disorders from master were that he was not to return
without an answer. I opened the letter and read, Dear
doctor Hesselius, it is here. You had not been an

(22:11):
hour gone when it returned. It is speaking. It knows
all that has happened. It knows everything. It knows you,
and as frantic and atrocious it reviles, I send you this.
It knows every word I have written. I write this,
I promised, and I therefore write. But I fear very confusedly,
very incoherently. I am so interrupted, disturbed ever yours sincerely,

(22:33):
yours Robert Linda Jennings. When did this come? I asked,
about eleven last night. The man was here again, and
has been here three times to day. The last time
was about an hour since. Thus answered, and with the
notes I had made upon his case in my pocket,
I was in a few minutes driving towards Richmond to

(22:54):
see mister Jennings. I, by no means, as you perceive,
despaired of mister jen case. He had himself remembered and applied,
though quite in the mistaken way, the principle which I
lay down in my metaphysical medicine, and which governs all
such cases. I was about to apply it in earnest.
I was profoundly interested and very anxious to see and

(23:15):
examine him while the enemy was actually present. I drove
up to the Somber house and dran up the steps
and knocked the door. In a little time was opened
by a tall woman in black silk. She looked ill,
as if she had been crying. She curtsied and heard
my question, but she did not answer. She turned her
face away, extending her hand towards two men who were

(23:38):
coming downstairs, and thus having as it were, tacitly made
me over to them. She passed through a side door
hastily and shut it. The man who was nearest the
hall I at once accosted, But being now close to him,
I was shocked to see that both his hands were
covered with blood. I drew back a little, and the

(23:58):
man passing downstairs merely said, in a low tone, here
is the servant, sir. The servant had stopped on the stairs,
confounded and dumb at seeing me. He was rubbing his
hands in the handkerchief, and it was steeped in blood. Jones,
what is it? What has happened? I asked, while a
sickening suspicion overpowered me. The man asked me to come

(24:22):
up to the lobby. I was beside him in a moment,
and frowning and pallid with contracted eyes. He told me
the horror which I already half guessed, his master had
made away with himself. I went upstairs with him to
the room. What I saw there I won't tell you.
He had cut his throat with his razor. It was

(24:43):
a frightful gash. The two men had laid him on
the bed and composed his limbs. It had happened as
the immense pool of blood on the floor, declared at
some distance between the bed and the window. There was
carpet round his bed, and a carpet under his dressing table,
but none on the rest of the room. For the
ann said he did not like a carpet in his bedroom.
In this somber and now terrible room, one of the

(25:06):
great elms that darkened the house was slowly moving the
shadow of one of its great bows upon this dreadful floor.
I beckoned to the servant, and we went downstairs together.
I turned off the hall into an old fashioned paneled room,
and standing there I heard all the servant had to tell.
It was not a great deal. I concluded, sir, from

(25:29):
your words and looks, Sir, as you left last night,
that you thought my master's seriously ill. I thought it
might be that you were afraid of a fit or something,
so I attended very close to your directions. He sat
up late till past three o'clock. He was not writing
or reading. He was talking a great deal to himself,
but that was nothing unusual. About half the hour I
assisted him to undress. I left him in his slippers

(25:52):
and dressing cow. I went back softly. In about half
an hour he was in his bed, quite undressed, and
a pair of candles lighted on the table beside his bed.
He was leaning on his elbow and looking out at
the other side of the bed when I came in.
I asked him if he wanted anything, and he said no.
I don't know whether it was what you said to me, sir,

(26:12):
or something a little unusual about him, but I was uneasy,
uncommon uneasy about him last night. In another half hour,
or it might have been a little more, I went
up again. I did not hear him talking as before.
I opened the door a little. The candles were both out,
which was not usual. I had a bedroom candle, and

(26:33):
I let the light in a little bit. Looking softly round,
I saw him sitting in that chair beside the dressing
table with his clothes on. Again. He turned round and
looked at me. I thought it was strange, you should
get up and dress and put out the candles to
sit in the dark that way. But I only asked
him again if I could do anything for him. He
said no, rather sharp, I thought. I asked if I

(26:55):
might light the candles, and he said, do as you like, Jones.
So I lighted them inger about the room, and he said,
tell me the truth, Jones. Why did you come again?
Did you not hear anyone cursing? No, Sir, I said,
wondering what he could mean. No, said he after me.
Of course no, And I said to him, wouldn't it

(27:16):
be well, sir if you went to bed. It's just
five o'clock And he said nothing, but very likely good night, Jones.
So I went, sir. But in less than an hour
I came again. The door was fast, and he heard
me and called, as I thought, from the bed to
know what I wanted, and you desired me not to
disturb him again. I lay down a step for a little.

(27:37):
It must have been between six and seven. When I
went up again. The door was still fast, and he
made no answer. So I did not like to disturb him,
and thinking he was asleep, I left him till nine.
It was his customed to ring when he wished me
to come, and I had no particular hour for calling him.
I tapped very gently, and getting no answer, I stayed
away a good while, supposing he was getting some rest.

(27:58):
Then it was not till eleven o'clock. I grew really
uncomfortable about him, for at the latest he was never
that I could remember. Late than half past ten, I
got no answer. I knocked and called, but still no answer. So,
not being able to force the door, I called Thomas
from the stables, and together we forced it and found
him in a shocking way. You saw Jones had no

(28:20):
more to tell. Poor mister Jennings was very gentle and
very kind. All his people were fond of him. I
could see that the servant was very much moved. So
dejected and agitated, I passed from that terrible house and
its dark canopy of elms, and I hope I shall
never see it more. While I write to you, I

(28:42):
feel like a man who has but half waked from
a frightful and monotonous dream. My memory rejects the picture
with incredulity and horror. Yet I know it is true.
It is the story of the process of a poison,
a poison which excites the reciprocal action of spirit and nerve,
and parallel the tissue that separates these cognate functions of
the senses, the external and the interior. Thus we find

(29:07):
strange bedfellows, and the mortal and immortal prematurely make acquaintance
conclusion a word for those who suffer, My dear van
lou you have suffered from an affliction similar to that
which I have just described. You twice complained of a
return of it, who under God cured you, your humble servant,

(29:30):
Martin Heecilius. Let me rather adopt the more emphasized piety
of a certain good old French surgeon of three hundred
years ago. I treated and God cured you. Come, my friend,
you are not to be hippish. Let me tell you
a fact I have met with and treated, as my
book shows fifty seven cases of this kind of vision

(29:51):
which I termined differently sublimated, precocious, and interior. There is
another class of afflictions which are truly termed, though commonly confounded,
with those which I describe spectral illusions. These latter I
look upon as being no less simply curable than a
cold in the head or a trifling dyspepsia. It is

(30:11):
those which rank in the first category that test our
promptitude of thought. Fifty Seven such cases have I encountered,
neither more nor less, And in how many of these
have I failed? In no one single instance. There is
no one affliction of mortality more easily and certainly reducible
with a little patience and a rational confidence in the physician.

(30:31):
With these simple conditions, I look upon the cure as
absolutely certain. You are to remember that I had not
even commenced to treat mister Jennings's case. I have not
any doubt that I should have cured him perfectly in
eighteen months, or possibly it might have extended to two years.
Some cases are very rapidly curable, others extremely tedious. Every
intelligent physician who will give thought and diligence to the

(30:53):
task will affect a cure. You know my tract on
the cardinal functions of the brain, I there by the
evidence of innumerable facts, prove, as I think, the high
probability of a circulation arterial and venus in its mechanism
through the nerves of this system, thus considered the brain
is the heart. The fluid which is propagated hence through

(31:15):
one class of nerves, returns in an altered state through another.
And the nature of that fluid is spiritual, though not
im material any more than, as I before remarked, light
or electricity, or so by various abuses, among which the
habitual use of such agents as green tea, is one.
This fluid may be effected as to its quality, but

(31:36):
it is more frequently disturbed as to equilibrium. This fluid
being that which we have in common with spirits, a
congestion found upon the masses of brain or nerve connected
with the interior sense forms the surface unduly exposed on
which disembodied spirits may operate. Communication is thus more or
less effectually established between this brain circulation and the heart circulation.

(31:59):
There is an intimate simple The seat, or rather the
instrument of exterior vision is the eye. The seat of
interior vision is the nervous tissue and brain immediately about
and above the eyebrow. You remember how effectively I dissipated
your pictures by the simple application of iced odor cologne.
Few cases, however, can be treated exactly alike with anything

(32:19):
like rapid success. Cold acts powerfully as a repellent of
the nervous fluid. Long enough continued, it will even produce
that permanent insensibility which we call numbness, and a little
longer muscular as well as sensational paralysis. I have not,
I repeat the slightest doubt that I should have first
dimmed and ultimately sealed that inner eye, which mister Jennings

(32:41):
had inadvertently opened. The same senses are opened in delirium
tremands and entirely shut up again. When the over action
of the cerebral heart and the prodigious nervous congestions that
attend it are terminated by a decided change in the
state of the body. It is by acting steadily upon
the body, by a simple process, that this result is produced,
and inevitably produced. I have never yet failed. Poor mister

(33:05):
Jennings made away with himself. But that catastrophe was the
result of a totally different malady, which, as it were,
projected itself upon that disease which was established. His case
was in the distinctive manner a complication, and the complaint
under which he really succumbed was hereditary suicidal mania. Poor
mister Jennings, I cannot call a patient of mine, for

(33:27):
I had not even begun to treat his case, and
he had not yet given me. I am convinced his
full and unreserved confidence. If the patient does not array
himself on the side of the disease, his cure is certain.
The End of Green Tea by Joseph Sheridan l'afannou