San Andreas independent., 1857-10-03
The Magnetic Battery.

the voluptuous atmosphere of the Indian
summer falling over land and sea, when
at that deep and magical hour l had re-
lated my passion and my agonies, I dis
covered that she loved him With a
trembling voice and beating heart l
told her ALL Told her that for twelve
long months had lived upon her breath.
That my soul had shot forth its tenderest
tlbres beneath the sunshine of her ewes,
hoping to cling to her forever. That at
my deepest hours of study, her form had
danced between me and the page. That
love was making me mad; that | must
possess her or die
A curse upon your calm and reasona-
BILE beauty! With face divine enough
to madden angels, her reason has no tine
ture OF the passion that flashes in her
eyes. She, whose lightest touch will
make man shiver through every vein !;
whose breath, perfumed and warm, has
yet, the secret charm to raise storm in
the blood the rustling of whose robe
echoes with sharp thrills through every
vault of the heart such one will coolly
argue on the proprieties of love, or the
probabilities of happiness. Will cut
down your hopes, tropical in their growth,
with trenchant and Internal logic, and
drench the gold from'off your painted
Future, with cataract of sense.
She reasoned with me Reason !! ii
was like pouring oil upon raging fire, Oh
dosing maniac with cantharides. She
thought that our natures were incompat-
ible. That | was too fiery and uncon-
trollable to be mated with one whose hap
piness was peace. She babe me love
again seek some other woman whose
broader nature and more energetic spirit
might retrieve and balance mine.
| taxed her furiously with loving ano
ther | swore to spill his blood to die
dying with him; in short, | know not t.
what lengths of extravaganza my frenzy
carried me. She made me naughty
answer. She crushed me with her icy
tones, her well-bred department. Sh,
made no secret of her love. She wa
engaged to Clinton Knowles, and would
please God, be married to him next spring
Then, with a wintry bow and contemp
tuous glance, she swept by me, and let
me standing like some cold rock rooted il
the lonely sand.
Despite the cool contempt with whicl
| found my love for Anita Brent hurle
back in my face, | could not school my
self to hate her, or even soothe my tul
bulent heart down into a calm indiffer
ence. My rage, powerless against her
whom L yet worshipped, turned fercely
as it were, for some less sacred object OF
which to glut its vengeance, and naturally
enough, concentrated all its fury on my
rival, Carlton Knowles On him [ swort
a deep and deadly revenge. Hencefortf
| would devote all the energies of my
mind to accomplish his destruction.
would reach him if he were in the arms
of his bride.
By a curious idiosyncracy of my ma
ture, | had always been prone to specu
late on the means usually adopted in the
commission of murders Whenever tn,
evidence relating to an assassination ap
peared in the public prints, it was m,
habit to amuse myself by imagining Ger
tain processes by which | could have sue
cessfully accomplished the crime without
leaving any traces. reviewed all the
ordinary means of murder-poison, stab
bing, suffocation. All were faulty anc
incomplete Each was certain to have ;
train of circumstances accompanying it
which, if followed carefully, led eventu
ally to the very root of the crime. The
object of my ambition was to discover q
means by which it was possible to take a
mans life, and yet leave not the remotest
possibility of legal responsibility for the
murder. | conceived such a plaza
plan devilish and subtle, and defying In
vestigation-and this terrible means /
now formed the determination of employ
ing against my rival.
had much reputation in, New York
as scientific man. | occupied the post
of professor of physics in one of our prin-
cipal colleges, but it was to my researches
into the nature and power of electricity
that [ owed my chief fame. To me there
was something inexpressibly fascinating
in hunting out the secrets of this strange
and omnipresent fluid. There was some
thing wondrously sublime in holding the
kew of a power, awful, swift, irresistible,
mysterious as the will of an internal de-
ity. To strengthen and develope through
different species of batteries, those tre-
mendous currents whose noiseless strength
was capable of rending mountains asun-
der, was to me an active delight. I
found thousand novel metallic combina-
tions, each more powerful than the other
I constructed batteries, the united poles
of which fused the finest gold as if it
were SO much lead. / developed a heat
so limitless that at its touch the hardest
diamond crumbled, calcined into ashes.
| said to myself, exultingly, as l united
the poles of this tremendous machine
"Now | hold, indeed, the power of life
and death ~
In accordance with the plan I had
marked out, l no longer sought Anita
Brent. I seemed to bear meeklv my