In a Glass Darkly - J. Sheridan Le Fanu (great reads txt) 📗

In a Glass Darkly

By J. Sheridan Le Fanu.

Table of Contents Titlepage Imprint Green Tea Prologue I: Dr. Hesselius Relates How He Met the Rev. Mr. Jennings II: The Doctor Questions Lady Mary, and She Answers III: Dr. Hesselius Picks Up Something in Latin Books IV: Four Eyes Were Reading the Passage V: Doctor Hesselius Is Summoned to Richmond VI: How Mr. Jennings Met His Companion VII: The Journey: First Stage VIII: The Second Stage IX: The Third Stage X: Home Conclusion The Familiar Prologue I: Footsteps II: The Watcher III: An Advertisement IV: He Talks with a Clergyman V: Mr. Barton States His Case VI: Seen Again VII: Flight VIII: Softened IX: Requiescat Mr. Justice Harbottle Prologue I: The Judge’s House II: Mr. Peters III: Lewis Pyneweck IV: Interruption in Court V: Caleb Searcher VI: Arrested VII: Chief Justice Twofold VIII: Somebody Has Got Into the House IX: The Judge Leaves His House The Room in the Dragon Volant Prologue I: On the Road II: The Inn-Yard of the Belle Etoile III: Death and Love Together Mated IV: Monsieur Droqville V: Supper at the Belle Etoile VI: The Naked Sword VII: The White Rose VIII: A Three Minutes’ Visit IX: Gossip and Counsel X: The Black Veil XI: The Dragon Volant XII: The Magician XIII: The Oracle Tells Me Wonders XIV: Mademoiselle de la Vallière XV: Strange Story of the Dragon Volant XVI: The Parc of the Château de la Carque XVII: The Tenant of the Palanquin XVIII: The Churchyard XIX: The Key XX: A High-Cauld Cap XXI: I See Three Men in a Mirror XXII: Rapture XXIII: A Cup of Coffee XXIV: Hope XXV: Despair XXVI: Catastrophe Carmilla Prologue I: An Early Fright II: A Guest III: We Compare Notes IV: Her Habits—A Saunter V: A Wonderful Likeness VI: A Very Strange Agony VII: Descending VIII: Search IX: The Doctor X: Bereaved XI: The Story XII: A Petition XIII: The Woodman XIV: The Meeting XV: Ordeal and Execution XVI: Conclusion Colophon Uncopyright Imprint

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Green Tea Prologue Martin Hesselius, the German Physician

Though carefully educated in medicine and surgery, I have never practised either. The study of each continues, nevertheless, to interest me profoundly. Neither idleness nor caprice caused my secession from the honourable calling which I had just entered. The cause was a very trifling scratch inflicted by a dissecting knife. This trifle cost me the loss of two fingers, amputated promptly, and the more painful loss of my health, for I have never been quite well since, and have seldom been twelve months together in the same place.

In my wanderings I became acquainted with Dr. Martin Hesselius, a wanderer like myself, like me a physician, and like me an enthusiast in his profession. Unlike me in this, that his wanderings were voluntary, and he a man, if not of fortune, as we estimate fortune in England, at least in what our forefathers used to term “easy circumstances.” He was an old man when I first saw him; nearly five-and-thirty years my senior.

In Dr. Martin Hesselius, I found my master. His knowledge was immense, his grasp of a case was an intuition. He was the very man to inspire a young enthusiast, like me, with awe and delight. My admiration has stood the test of time and survived the separation of death. I am sure it was well-founded.

For nearly twenty years I acted as his medical secretary. His immense collection of papers he has left in my care, to be arranged, indexed and bound. His treatment of some of these cases is curious. He writes in two distinct characters. He describes what he saw and heard as an intelligent layman might, and when in this style of narrative he had seen the patient either through his own hall-door, to the light of day, or through the gates of darkness to the caverns of the dead, he returns upon the narrative, and in the terms of his art, and with all the force and originality of genius, proceeds to the work of analysis, diagnosis and illustration.

Here and there a case strikes me as of a kind to amuse or horrify a lay reader with an interest quite different from the peculiar one which it may possess for an expert. With slight modifications, chiefly of language, and of course a change of names, I copy the following. The narrator is Dr. Martin Hesselius. I find it among the voluminous notes of cases which he made during a tour in England about sixty-four years ago.

It is related in a series of