Rosa Campbell Praed

“ The effect his gaze produced on Beatrice was extraordinary. For an instant she glared at him like a wild animal entrapped. Then her eyes drooped as if she were cowed. All the grace and charm of womanhood vanished from her features. There was something approaching bestiality in their look. Lendon, who had gone close to her, started back. As Challis addressed her he gave a cry of horror and amazement, but words forsook him.
"Woman, possessed with a devil," said the mystic, "my business is with you." ”

“ To those who know, many a man and woman going about in the world is but a soulless organism whose higher self has been expelled by some sudden shock or demoniac machination, and whose body has become the home of one of these wandering earth-bound spirits. Strange it is that the more spiritual the nature, the more loosely are the particles bound together, and the more readily is the soul separated from the body. Do not misunderstand me. Such expulsions, though retarding the progress of the soul, do it no ultimate injury. For the body is but a garment ”

“ It is well that the impression of horror should fade. For your comfort I will tell you that in a few hours' time you will have ceased to connect the woman you love, and who is pure and sweet and worthy of your love, with the soul of that unhappy being who was Countess Adrian. ”

“ You, who walked the earth in the body of a passion-tossed woman, and as Countess Adrian awoke the desire of sin and the lust of the flesh—spirit of all evil and uncleanness, in the might of the White Brotherhood, by the Sign which must be obeyed, by the Word which is Holy, I command you to come forth. ”

“ Lendon, if you were learned in the lore of the Cabala you would know that there exist in Nature certain elementary spirits which are indeed the astral corpses of those who have died in crime or in the flush and heat of sensuous longing, and who, bodiless, tormented by desire, and incapable of gratifying it, haunt cities, like vampires suck the vitality of human beings, and even sometimes enter the bodies of living persons, and thus live on in enjoyment of their material pleasures. ”

“ For even in this nineteenth-century London, devils may enter into a man and torment him as in the days in Galilee when Jesu cast forth that dumb spirit which threw the young man down and tare him grievously. ”

“ I loved the other Duchess of Malfi, I hate this one."
A bearded critic, given to rather straight language, pulled Lendon aside. "Good God! Lendon, what does she mean by this? You know more of the girl than most of us. Why, in the name of Heaven, has she started on that tack? Does she propose to rival Violet Belavon?"—he named an actress whose name was uttered in horror by even the more lax members of her profession—"I never saw anything more damnably suggestive." ”

“ In these days such beings are called mediums, and they are let loose in the foul atmosphere of cities, and woe be to those who are not pure and strong to escape destruction." Challis paused. "Do you understand the mystery?" he asked. "The soul of Countess Adrian was one of these vampire spirits. When it lost its home of flesh Countess Adrian's will prepared for it another body. Countess Adrian's kiss established the necessary physical contact at the moment of dissolution. ”

“ Shocked, miserable and sick at heart, Lendon was preparing to leave the theatre. His mind vividly recalled the last occasion on which Beatrice had played the part, when her acting had been wrought to so refined a pitch of spiritual passion that there was scarcely a dry eye in the house as the curtain fell to Ferdinand's remorseful ejaculation:
"Cover her face ”