If it were possible that a person should give a faithful history of
his being, from the earliest epochs of his recollection, a picture
would be presented such as the world has never contemplated before.
A mirror would be held up to all men in which they might behold
their own recollections, and, in dim perspective, their shadowy hopes
and fears,--all that they dare not, or that, daring and desiring,
they could not expose to the open eyes of day. But thought can
with difficulty visit the intricate and winding chambers which it
inhabits. It is like a river whose rapid and perpetual stream flows
outwards;--like one in dread who speeds through the recesses of
some haunted pile, and dares not look behind. The caverns of the
mind are obscure, and shadowy; or pervaded with a lustre, beautifully
bright indeed, but shining not beyond their portals. If it were
possible to be where we have been, vitally and indeed--if, at the
moment of our presence there, we could define the results of our
experience,--if the passage from sensation to reflection--from a
state of passive perception to voluntary contemplation, were not
so dizzying and so tumultuous, this attempt would be less difficult.