re to leap into it, and be absorbed in oblivion?
What is that impulse but a perpetual calenture?--or may not the theory
of calentures be all false, and the results they are reported to cause
be in reality the results of morbid impulses? I have sat on the deck of
a steamer, and looked upon the waters as they chafed under the perpetual
scourging of the paddles; and I have been compelled to bind myself to
the vessel by a rope, to prevent a victory to the morbid impulses that
have come upon me. Are not Ulysses and the Sirens merely a poetic
statement of this common feeling?

But one of the most singular instances of morbid impulses in connection
with material things, exists in the case of a young man who not very
long ago visited a large iron manufactory. He stood opposite a huge
hammer, and watched with great interest its perfectly regular strokes.
At first it was beating immense lumps of crimson metal into thin, black
sheets; but the supply becoming exhausted, at last it only descended on
the polished anvil. Still the young man gazed intently on its motion;
then he followed its strokes with a corresponding motion of his head;
then his left arm moved to the same tune; and finally, he deliberately
placed his fist upon the anvil, and in a second it was smitten to a
jelly. The only explanation he could afford was that he felt an impulse
to do it; that he knew he should be disabled; that he saw all the
consequences in a misty kind of manner; but that he still felt a power
within, above sense and reason--a morbid impulse, in fact, to which he
succumbed, and by which he lost a good right hand. This incident
suggests many things, besides proving the peculiar nature and power of
morbid impulses: such things, for instance, as a law of sympathy on a
scale hitherto undreamt of, as well as a musical tune pervading all
things.

But the action of morbid impulses and desires is far from being confined
to things material. Witness the occurrence of my dream, which, though a
dream, was true in spirit. More speeches, writings, and actions of
humanity have their result in morbid impulse than we have an idea of.
Their territory stretches from the broadest farce to the deepest
tragedy. I remember spending an evening at Mrs. Cantaloupe's, and being
seized with an impulse to say a very insolent thing. Mrs. Cantaloupe is
the daughter of a small pork butcher, who, having married the scapegrace
younger son of a rich man, by a sudden sweeping away o