I snuffed up that uncontaminated aroma,--
literally and truly, like the smell of spring violets;
I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky meadow;
I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that inexpressible sperm,
I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost began to credit
the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue
in allaying the heat of anger; while bathing in that bath,
I felt divinely free from all ill-will, or petulance, or malice,
of any sort whatsoever.
Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed
that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed
that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me;
and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers'
hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules.
Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did
this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing
their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally;
as much as to say,--Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer
cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor
or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us
all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves
universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.
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