MDDM18: The Night's Main Drama

[Dave Monroe]

   "'So much for Harlequin,' cries Dr. Franklin, 'Let
us get out into the Night's Main Drama!-- There's
Weather-Gear for all, this Scythe here is the perfect
Shape to catch us a Bolt, perhaps a good many,--
better than a Key upon a Kite, indeed,-- think of it
as Death's Picklock,-- come, form your Line...all
here?' pulling his Hood up again, '-- felonious Entry,
into the Anterooms of the Cre-a-torr.... Not joining
us tonight, Mr. Mason?'  Lowering his Lenses and
staring for an Instant.  Before Mason, from whom all
comfort has flown, can quite reply, the Figure has
turn'd and taken a Hand at the end of the Line,-- the
Door opens and the Wind and Rain blow in, Thunder
crashes, and with odd strangl'd cries of Amasement,
the Party of Seekers are plung'd out into the Storm,
and vanish'd." (M&D, Ch. 29, p. 295)

"the perfect Shape"

>From J.L. Heilbron, Electricity in the 17th and 18th
Centuries: A Study in Early Modern Physics (New York:
Dover, 1999 [Berkeley: U of Cal P, 1979]), Ch. XIV,
"Benjamin Franklin," pp. 324-43 ...

"... two chraracteristic Franklinist principles, the
power of points and the doctrine of electricity plus
and minus ..." (p. 327)

   "'The power of points' is their aptness in 'drawing
off and throwing off the electrical fire.'" (ibid.)

>From Benjamin Franklin, Experiments and Observations
on Electricity (1774) ...

"... the wonderful effect of pointed bodies, both in
drawing off and throwing off the electrical fire."

... in Benjamin Franklin's Experiments, ed. I. Bernard
Cohen (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1941), Letter II
(July 11, 1747), p. 174.  

And from Jean Antoine "Abbe" Nollet, Lettres sur
l'ectricite. [I] dans lesquelles on examine les
derniers decouvertes qui ont ete faites sur cette
matiere, & les consequences que l'on en peut tirer
(1753) ...

"Some people having assured us that a trveller in 
barren countryside could defend himself [from
lightning] by drawing his sword against the clouds,
the clergy, who carry none, began to complain;
whereupon they were shown Mr. Franklin's book ..."

... in J.L. Heilbron, Electricity in the 17th and 18th
Centuries: A Study in Early Modern Physics (New York:
Dover, 1999 [Berkeley: U of Cal P, 1979]), Ch. XIV,
"Benjamin Franklin," p. 343, n. 55 ...


"the Anterooms of the Cre-a-torr"

"the Door opens and the Wind and Rain blow in, Thunder
crashes"

cf. ...

"... and heretics there will be: Gnostics who have
been taken in a rush of wind and fire to chambers of
the Rocket-throne ..." (GR, Pt. IV, p. 727)

Macabre to merkabah?  See, e.g. ...

http://www.mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/merkavah.html

But a Kabbalist ("letter by letter," "text [mine] to
permuite and combine into new revelations") I am not,
so, let me know ...


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