DOI article:
Charles H. [Henry] Caffin, Past the Wit of Man to Say What Dream It Was
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.30583#0030
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I turned to my companion, but his look, that lately had expressed
such rapture of soul-communion, now discouraged intimacy. He seemed
as if oppressed with ponderous thought. His brows had settled down upon
his eyes in bristly ridges and furrows, and his lips, pressed firmly together,
made a line of ridges parallel with his brows. And even while I watched
him, the latter, yielding to their weight of thought, descended slowly till
they mingled with his mouth; his chin sank into his chest; his chest into
his stomach; his stomach into his legs; and his legs, I suppose, into them-
selves. For the whole figure was closing down upon itself, until at last it
squatted on the floor like a toad, with one lustrous but expressionless eye.
This, however, I discovered shortly was a fancy button on the lapel of his
coat. For now the figure began to lengthen up again, as slowly as it had
sunk. Again the clouds were rising, and my companion gradually resumed
his stature. But the remarkableness of the phenomenon did not stop here ;
for the air was sucked up by the retreating clouds — at least this seemed to
be the explanation at the time — and once more a vacuum was formed in
which my companion, leaving the floor, began to float with a soulful smile
upon his face and affected gestures of the limbs, that reminded me of Peru-
gino's Angels.
By this time, I had no need of a guide. As one got used to the
atmosphere of the place, it had the remarkable effect of creating in one a
consciousness ofcc knowing it all,” so that although I witnessed many strange
things, they were quite intelligible and seemed to be even reasonable. It
was such an atmosphere as I had never experienced before and never expect
to find anywhere else. Indeed, it was this virtue that gave to the Temple
its sacred character and induced in its habitual devotees those alternating
phases of elated rapture and of compressed turgidity. But the Temple had
another function. It was also a laboratory in which the members practised
their own peculiar kind of scientific research; a court of no appeal, in which
they sat as judge and jury, and a sort of Inquisition butcher-shop, in which
truth was ascertained by torture and the guilty were treated to their
deserts.
For other persons began to appear. The patients, or were they vic-
tims ? — I was not quite clear upon this point — were brought in by the
Temple-members. There was a constant coming and going and much di-
versity in the manner thereof. For example, some were dragged in by their
whiskers or long hair, protesting bitterly ; others bore a look of sullen con-
tempt as, propelled by kicks, they spun through the air and alighted on the
floor. Others, on the contrary, were ushered in with bows and smiles and
seated ceremoniously on a throne, while the Temple-members stood around,
saluting in the Japanese manner with repeated bowings, and cantillating a
choral-song of adulation. Some of these favored persons accepted the
homage with serious complacency, and when, at the conclusion of the chorus,
a chalice filled with melted butter and molasses was handed to them, sucked
the mixture down, licked the sides of the chalice with their fat tongues and
held out the vessel for another filling. But there were others that, as the
such rapture of soul-communion, now discouraged intimacy. He seemed
as if oppressed with ponderous thought. His brows had settled down upon
his eyes in bristly ridges and furrows, and his lips, pressed firmly together,
made a line of ridges parallel with his brows. And even while I watched
him, the latter, yielding to their weight of thought, descended slowly till
they mingled with his mouth; his chin sank into his chest; his chest into
his stomach; his stomach into his legs; and his legs, I suppose, into them-
selves. For the whole figure was closing down upon itself, until at last it
squatted on the floor like a toad, with one lustrous but expressionless eye.
This, however, I discovered shortly was a fancy button on the lapel of his
coat. For now the figure began to lengthen up again, as slowly as it had
sunk. Again the clouds were rising, and my companion gradually resumed
his stature. But the remarkableness of the phenomenon did not stop here ;
for the air was sucked up by the retreating clouds — at least this seemed to
be the explanation at the time — and once more a vacuum was formed in
which my companion, leaving the floor, began to float with a soulful smile
upon his face and affected gestures of the limbs, that reminded me of Peru-
gino's Angels.
By this time, I had no need of a guide. As one got used to the
atmosphere of the place, it had the remarkable effect of creating in one a
consciousness ofcc knowing it all,” so that although I witnessed many strange
things, they were quite intelligible and seemed to be even reasonable. It
was such an atmosphere as I had never experienced before and never expect
to find anywhere else. Indeed, it was this virtue that gave to the Temple
its sacred character and induced in its habitual devotees those alternating
phases of elated rapture and of compressed turgidity. But the Temple had
another function. It was also a laboratory in which the members practised
their own peculiar kind of scientific research; a court of no appeal, in which
they sat as judge and jury, and a sort of Inquisition butcher-shop, in which
truth was ascertained by torture and the guilty were treated to their
deserts.
For other persons began to appear. The patients, or were they vic-
tims ? — I was not quite clear upon this point — were brought in by the
Temple-members. There was a constant coming and going and much di-
versity in the manner thereof. For example, some were dragged in by their
whiskers or long hair, protesting bitterly ; others bore a look of sullen con-
tempt as, propelled by kicks, they spun through the air and alighted on the
floor. Others, on the contrary, were ushered in with bows and smiles and
seated ceremoniously on a throne, while the Temple-members stood around,
saluting in the Japanese manner with repeated bowings, and cantillating a
choral-song of adulation. Some of these favored persons accepted the
homage with serious complacency, and when, at the conclusion of the chorus,
a chalice filled with melted butter and molasses was handed to them, sucked
the mixture down, licked the sides of the chalice with their fat tongues and
held out the vessel for another filling. But there were others that, as the
