The solitary man must dwell within his own
shadow, and make what sport he can; and it is the saddest of all the
privileges of reasoning beings, that reason can thus debar a man from
wholesome experience. Even in the desolation of ruined Babylon the
satyr calls to his fellow and the great owl rears her brood; but the
narrow and shivering soul must sit in solitude, till perhaps on a day
of joy he may see the background of his dark heart all alive with a
tapestry of shining angels, bearing vials in their hands of the water
of Life.
XII
I wonder if others experience a very peculiar sensation, which comes
upon me at intervals unexpectedly and inexplicably in a certain kind of
scene, and on reading a certain type of book--I have known it from my
early childhood, as far back as I can recollect anything. It is the
sensation of being quite close to some beautiful and mysterious thing
which I have lost, and for which in a blind way I am searching. It
contains within it a vague yet poignant happiness, a rich and unknown
experience. It is the nearest I ever come to a sense of pre-existence;
and I have sometimes wondered if it might not be, not perhaps my own
pre-existence, but some inherited recollection of happiness in which I
myself had no part, but which was part of the mind of one, or of many,
from whom I derive my origin. If limbs and features, qualities and
desires, are derived from one's ancestors, why should one not also
derive a touch of their happy dreams, their sweet remembrances?
The first time it ever came to me was when we were taken, quite as
small children, to a little cottage which stood in a clearing of a
great pine-wood near Wellington College.
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