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Untitled Article
his teeth , as be rushed from the room , Mchabod ! the glory is decried ! ' Erasmus followed wit ^ tfouibted looks and . ^ ii % - gerihjj step , Philip moved not . Will ye klso go a # ay V s § Id Martin , ' I will not / he replied . < Nevertheless in tins Wa # er I scarcely think with you . Of a truth my mind is sorel y doubled and strai ghtened . ' ' Enough / said Luther , ' we Vll wk more of this anon : meantime leave me to myself Tor a space . I
am about to abide that which is best sustained alone . Take the sleeping boy with you ; his years and your nature are alike unfit for this hour / Philip retired with the child . Intense study , overwatching , ardent feelings , and great imaginative powers , united with a firm belief in the popular superstition of the day , had contributed to endow and afftiqt Luther with the unenviable power of embodying morbid thought , and giving to the creation of an over-excited nervous
system , form , and name , and terrors . He had for some time ' laboured more abundantly than them all / and thence his excitable and overworked nature was doomed to pay the extreme penalty of waste and bad economy of physical power . The shades of evening were dim in that lowly room , but the last ray of sunshine slanted and brightened across the oak
wainscoat opposite the settle of olden times , on which this Prophet of Reform was lying . Alas ! there was no rqpose ^ in his attitude , no quiet in his reclining . HLs hands hung down in weariness , but not in rest . . The stream of life smarted iu his veins , and ached and throbbed at every pulse . Each nerve seemed endowed with separate suffering vitality , as it thrived
with agonized sensation , cold and clammy perspiration stood on his smarting forehead , his lips moved , and his eyes wandered ^ till at length they rested with a strange and earnest gaze on the fast-facfing sunbeam , for there stood the mystic creation pf hris fevered fancy , imaged forth in the vast massy outline of a figure sublime and perfect in its gigantic form , but of horrific , distorted ^
and malignant expression ! There was want of distinctness and variation in the dusky and huge outline of its vast proportions , as they now almost vanished into misty and uncertain shadow , and then stood forth in bold and prominent relief . The sufferer ( for such he dou ^ btjless was , and would now be . deemed ) harassed , and bewOderejl with his own jmagery , rushed forward to seize ancl annihilate i
the vision . This is my hour ! ' it shouted , with a jnahguaflt glance , and , touched by the indistinct hand of the Evil Oht , Luther sunk powerless . But the disorder that oppressed bis physical frame « t , upulated his mental faculties with a high degree of morbid , excitemerit ; perception , memory , and imagination , were ail l ^ ah ^ d on to tumultuous action . Long and skilfully he maintained an
Untitled Article
The Marriage of Luther . , £ ! £
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1836, page 619, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2662/page/31/
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