Besides the incidents above related, and a hundred others of similar character, which, if time and the reader’s patience permitted, I might cull from Montgeron’s pages, the restless enthusiasm of the convulsionists ultimately betrayed them into extravagances, in which it is often hard to decide whether the grotesque or the horrible more predominated.  One convulsionist descended the long stairs of an infirmary head-foremost, lying on her back; another caused herself to be attached, by a rope round her neck, to a hook in the wall.  A third repeated her prayers while turning somersets.  A fourth, suspended by the feet, with the head hanging down, remained in that position three-quarters of an hour.  A fifth, lying down on a tomb, caused herself to be covered to the neck with baked earth mixed with sand and saturated with vinegar.  A sixth made her bed, in winter, on billets of wood; a seventh on bars of iron.  The Sister Felicite was in the habit of causing herself to be nailed to the cross, and of remaining there half an hour at a time, gayly conversing with the pious who surrounded her.[47] Another sister, named Scholastique, after long hesitation between different modes of mortification, having one day remarked the manner in which they constructed the pavement of the streets, had her dress tightly fastened below the knee, and then ordered one of the assistants to take her by the legs, and, with her head downward, to dash it repeatedly against the tiled floor, after the fashion of paviors, when using a rammer.

“If,” says Calmeil, “the idea had chanced to suggest itself to one of these theomaniacs, that disembowelling alive would be a sacrifice pleasing to the Supreme Being, she would undoubtedly have insisted upon being subjected to such a martyrdom."[48]

The mental and physiological phenomena connected with this epidemic remain to be noticed, together with the theories and suggestions put forth by medical and other contemporary writers, in explanation of what has here been sketched, the substance of which is usually admitted by these commentators, however incredible, when related at this distance of time, it may appear.  Next month the subject will be continued.

* * * * *

PRESENCE.

  The wild, sweet water, as it flows,—­
    The winds, that kiss me as they pass,—­
  The starry shadow of the rose,
    Sitting beside her on the grass,—­

  The daffodilly, trying to bless
    With better light the beauteous air,—­
  The lily, wearing the white dress
    Of sanctuary, to be more fair,—­

  The lithe-armed, dainty-fingered brier,
    That in the woods, so dim and drear,
  Lights up betimes her tender fire
    To soothe the homesick pioneer,—­

  The moth, his brown sails balancing
    Along the stubble crisp and dry,—­
  The ground-flower, with a blood-red ring
    On either hand,—­the pewet’s cry,—­