took the
Gowanus road toward Greenwood. Perhaps it was some defunct rogue there
interred, who was leading me on to 'rave among the tombs.'

Arrived at a spot where a little tree-capped promontory overhangs the
beach, I turned aside, beneath the projection, and sat down on a
log--like Jonah under the gourd--and, gazing out on the rippling waves
of the bay, desired that death or relief might come. I was determined to
sit there until God or Satan made good his claim upon me. Suddenly
relief came. The fierce onset upon my intellect ceased. I was made
whole. I 'leaped and walked.' The means of my relief I never knew.

But my lesson was not complete. I had but just informed my medical
friend of my deliverance (he had scoured the neighborhood, and informed
several of the cause of his fears), when there were mutterings and
growlings of another approaching storm. The messengers of Satan sent to
baffle me gave me to understand that they had not abandoned their prey,
but were sure of it yet. They poured the wrath of hell upon my
defenceless head that afternoon. I have not, hitherto, attempted to
offer much direct proof to the uninitiated that my experiences, in this
connection, were other than hallucination. That which now occurred is,
as it seems to me, in the nature of such proof. Here was I thoroughly
alarmed for my safety, and extremely anxious to get rid of my
tormentors. Yet, not for a single moment now, could I close my mental
ears to their horrid clangor of threats and imprecations; for, throwing
off all restraint, they flooded me with Billingsgate. They cursed and
damned me, and all persons, things, and ideas esteemed by me, in the
most approved style. Indeed, the swearing exceeded anything I ever heard
on the Mississippi and Alabama river boats, when forced, for lack of
room, to sleep on the floor of the saloon, almost under the feet of the
chivalry, during their midnight gambling carousals.

The mode of speech is not easily described. Sometimes the words came
slowly and distinctly. Again there would be merely thought-panorama
presented. A complete statement or view of things can be flashed into
the mind in an instant. Therefore the language of spirits is of vastly
greater compass than that of men. These immortal blackguards could vomit
more oaths and other blasphemy in five minutes, than a mortal one could
in an hour. If it is difficult to translate from one earth-language
into another, how much harder must it be to b