The sick man and the physician

A tale dedicated to the Editor of the Renard, of Bordeaux, by the rapping Spirit of Carcassonne. “There is no enduring it, doctor; it is too strong, Exclaimed, the other day, Monsieur Rochefort! Take my pulse, and see I am ill;

By a mania the globe is wholly seized. It makes one believe that God has lost His function; It sinks… and I curse then the whole globe. And I begin by steam… Is it thus that one travels? Where are at last the times of a carriage of my own? Times with no risk at all of breaking one’s neck, That from Paris to Sceaux a party went journeying? To speak of progress!… Ridiculous, doctor! Launched at full gallop, the orb sobs in pain; It is like a horrible chaos!…A cable to carry From Calais to Peking words beneath the sea. A tailor makes seams without needles; From water fire is drawn and from cotton sparks; A bad painter using an apparatus for brushes, Will sell portraits that the sun manufactures! Glory, glory to the past! The century grows bold, Bellows for equality; the people have the floor! From writing in Bordeaux, Sabò gives notice! Examine, doctor, everything is turned upside down. Of the charlatans I shall have to strip the skin; By the deuce! I shall inform the chief of the Etincelle; It is there that, sabre in hand, a skull defends us; That is not all, doctor, oh scandal! someone claims Assuming the expressions of a La Fontaine, From such a Spirit to give us lessons.” - Here, Rochefort spat, lowering his voice: “In the Spirit, doctor, with faith do you now believe? Ah! the doctor replies! insincere, I cannot, The Spirit?… I do not believe, friend… not even in yours.” Note. – This tale, whose merit we leave to the reader to judge, was obtained spontaneously by typtology, like other charming poems of the same medium, concerning a witty article by Monsieur Aug. Bez, inserted in the Renard, which desires to open its columns to the adherents of Spiritism. Etincelle is another newspaper of Bordeaux, edited by Monsieur Rattier, who casts sparks against Spiritism with the aim of setting it ablaze, but who, until now, has only succeeded in producing an illumination similar to that of the sparks of fireworks, which go out before touching the ground. As for Monsieur Rochefort, he will certainly find this poem ill-natured.