18. Philtres And Magnetismb

One of the distinguished physicians and most amiable men of learning in London - Dr. Ashburner - told me last year that a certain client, after leaving the house of a distinguished lady, observed to him: “I have just had a strange compliment from the Marchioness of_. Looking me straight in the face, she said: ‘Sir, you will not make me flinch before your terrible glance: you have the eyes of Satan.’” “Well,” answered the doctor, smiling, “you, of course, put your arms round her neck and embraced her?” “Not at all; I was overwhelmed by her sudden onslaught.” “Beware how you call on her again, then, my friend; you will have fallen deeply in her estimation!” The office of executioner is commonly said to go down from father to son. Do executioners really have children? Undoubtedly, as they never fail to get wives. Marat had a mistress who loved him tenderly - he, the loathsome leper; but still it was that terrible Marat who caused the world to tremble. Love, above all in a woman, may be termed a veritable hallucination; for want of a prudent motive, it will frequently select an absurd one. Deceive Joconde for a clown, how awful! -Ah! but supposing it is awful, why not perpetrate it? It must be pleasant to be occasionally guilty of a small abomination. Given this transcendental knowledge of woman, another device can be adopted to attract her notice - not to concern oneself with her, or to do so in a way which is humiliating to her self-love, treating her as a child and deriding all notion of paying court to her. The parts are then reversed; she will move heaven and earth to tempt you; she will initiate you into secrets which women keep back; she will vest and unvest before you, making such observations as: “Between women-among old friends-I have no fear about you-you are not a man for me.” etc. Then she will watch your expression; if she find it calm and indifferent, she will be indignant; she will approach you under some pretext, brush you with her tresses, permit her bodice to slip open. Women, in such cases, occasionally will risk a violence, not out of desire, but from curiosity, from impatience and irritation. a magician of any spirit will need no other philtres than these; he will also use flattering words, magnetic breathings, slight but voluptuous contacts, by a kind of hypocrisy and as if unconscious. Those who resort to potions are old, idiotic, ugly, impotent. Where, indeed, is the use of the philtre? Anyone who is truly a man has always at his disposal the means of making himself loved, providing that he does not seek to usurp a place which is occupied. It would be a sovereign blunder to attempt the conquest of a young and affectionate bride during the first felicities of the honeymoon, or of a fortified Clarissa made miserable already by a Lovelace, or bitterly lamenting her love. We shall not discuss here the impurities of Black Magic; the subject of philtres: we have done with the coctions of Canidia. The epodes of Horace tell us after what manner this abominable Roman sorceress compounded her poisons, while for the sacrifices and enchantments of love, we may refer to the Eclogues of Virgil and Theocritus, where the ceremonials for this species of magical work are described minutely. Nor shall we need to reproduce the recipes of the Grimoires or of the LITTLE Albert, which anyone can consult for themselves. All these various practices connect with magnetism or poisonous magic and are either foolish or criminal.