The pleasure of
striking out in some lonely lake of clear water, with forests, rocks,
and flowers around, and the soft stirring of the warm breeze,--all
this would give, to those who knew them not, a very faint idea of the
exultation with which my soul bathed itself in the beams of an unknown
light, hearkened to the awful and uncertain voice of inspiration, as
vision upon vision poured from some unknown source through my
throbbing brain.
"No earthly pleasure can compare with the divine delight of watching
the dawn of an idea in the space of abstractions as it rises like the
morning sun; an idea that, better still, attains gradually like a
child to puberty and man's estate. Study lends a kind of enchantment
to all our surroundings. The wretched desk covered with brown leather
at which I wrote, my piano, bed, and armchair, the odd wall-paper and
furniture seemed to have for me a kind of life in them, and to be
humble friends of mine and mute partakers of my destiny. How often
have I confided my soul to them in a glance! A warped bit of beading
often met my eyes, and suggested new developments,--a striking proof
of my system, or a felicitous word by which to render my all but
inexpressible thought. By sheer contemplation of the things about me I
discerned an expression and a character in each.
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