It is curious that the memory, most retentive of images, should yet be much more retentive of feelings than of facts: for instance, we remember with such intense vividness a period of suffering, that it seems even to renew itself through the medium of thought; yet, at the same time, we perhaps find difficulty in recalling, with any distinctness, the causes of that pain.
118.
“Truth has never manifested itself to me in such a broad stream of light as seems to be poured upon some minds. Truth has appeared to my mental eye, like a vivid, yet small and trembling star in a storm, now appearing for a moment with a beauty that enraptured, now lost in such clouds, as, had I less faith, might make me suspect that the previous clear sight had been a delusion.”—Blanco White.
Very exquisite in the aptness as well as poetry of the comparison! Some walk by daylight, some walk by starlight. Those who see the sun do not see the stars; those who see the stars do not see the sun.
He says in another place:—
“I am averse to too much activity of the imagination on the future life. I hope to die full of confidence that no evil awaits me: but any picture of a future life distresses me. I feel as if an eternity of existence were already an insupportable burden on my soul.”
How characteristic of that lassitude of the soul and sickness of the heart which “asks not happiness, but longs for rest!”
