seizing her by the throat, and placing my mouth close to her ear, I was
preparing to launch forth a new and more decided epithet of opprobrium,
which should not fail, if ejaculated, to convince her of her
insignificance, when to my extreme horror and astonishment I discovered
that I had lost my breath.

The phrases "I am out of breath," "I have lost my breath," etc., are
often enough repeated in common conversation; but it had never occurred
to me that the terrible accident of which I speak could bona fide and
actually happen! Imagine--that is if you have a fanciful turn--imagine,
I say, my wonder--my consternation--my despair!

There is a good genius, however, which has never entirely deserted me.
In my most ungovernable moods I still retain a sense of propriety, et le
chemin des passions me conduit--as Lord Edouard in the "Julie" says it
did him--a la philosophie veritable.

Although I could not at first precisely ascertain to what degree the
occurrence had affected me, I determined at all events to conceal the
matter from my wife, until further experience should discover to me
the extent of this my unheard of calamity. Altering my countenance,
therefore, in a moment, from its bepuffed and distorted appearance, to
an expression of arch and coquettish benignity, I gave my lady a pat on
the one cheek, and a kiss on the other, and without saying one syllable
(Furies! I could not), left her astonished at my drollery, as I
pirouetted out of the room in a Pas de Zephyr.

Behold me then safely ensconced in my private boudoir, a fearful
instance of the ill consequences attending upon irascibility--alive,
with the qualifications of the dead--dead, with the propensities of
the living--an anomaly on the face of the earth--being very calm, yet
breathless.

Yes! breathless. I am serious in asserting that my breath was entirely
gone. I could not have stirred with it a feather if my life had been at
issue, or sullied even the delicacy of a mirror. Hard fate!--yet there
was some alleviation to the first overwhelming paroxysm of my sorrow. I
found, upon trial, that the powers of utterance which, upon my inability
to proceed in the conversation with my wife, I then concluded to be
totally destroyed, were in fact only partially impeded, and I discovered
that had I, at that interesting crisis, dropped my voice to a singularly
deep guttural, I might still have continued to her the communication of
my sentiments; this pitch of voice (