"
Extract from Letter 2, written about a fortnight later:
"Some insane persons have a way of couching their nonsense in language
that sounds rational, and has a false air of logical connection. Their
periods seem stolen from sensible books, and forcibly fitted to
incongruous bosh. By this means the ear is confused, and a slow hearer
might fancy he was listening to sense.
"I have secured you one example of this. You must know that, in the
evening, I sometimes collect a few together, and try to get them to
tell their stories. Little comes of it in general but interruptions.
But, one night, a melancholy Bagman responded in good set terms, and
all in a moment; one would have thought I had put a torch to a barrel
of powder, he went off so quickly, in this style:
"'You ask my story: it is briefly told. Initiated in commerce from my
earliest years, and traveled in the cotton trade. As representative of
a large house in Manchester, I visited the United States.
"'Unfortunately for me, that country was then the chosen abode of
spirits; the very air was thick and humming with supernaturalia. Ere
long spirit-voices whispered in my ear, and suggested pious aspirations
at first. That was a blind, no doubt; for very soon they went on to
insinuate things profane and indelicate, and urged me to deliver them
in mixed companies; I forbore with difficulty, restrained by the early
lessons of a pious mother, and a disinclination to be kicked
downstairs, or flung out o' window.
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