SEWARD.
Even so, sir.
NORTH.
For this is the nature of the human Mind. Our feelings are not always determined by distinct thought; but there is a sort of presaging faculty in the soul, by which it foresees whither its own conception tends, and feels, in anticipation of those thoughts, into which the imagination would run if it were left free.
SEWARD.
I am not sure, sir, that I fully understand you.
NORTH.
Thus certain strains of thought are felt to be joyous or solemn when they are barely touched, and in the ready sensibility, feeling begins to arise, though no ideas are yet distinctly present to which such feeling fitly belongs. The mind shudders or is gladdened at the distant suggestion of what it knows, if pursued, would shake it with horror, or fill the blood with joy.
TALBOYS.
Every human being must have had such experience.