Repetition is the only form of permanence that nature can achieve,
and in those Mediterranean regions that nurtured the classic mind,
by continually repeating the same definite scenes, nature forced it
to fix its ideas. Every one learned to think that the earth and the
gods were more permanent than himself; he perused them, he returned to
them, he studied them at arm's length, and he recognized their external
divinity. But where the Atlantic mists envelop everything, though we
must repeatedly use the same names for new-born things, as we continue
to christen children John and Mary, yet we feel that the facts, like
the persons, are never really alike; everything is so fused, merged,
and continuous, that whatever element we may choose to say is repeated
seems but a mental abstraction and a creature of language. The weather
has got into our bones; there is a fog in the brain; the limits of our
own being become uncertain to us. Yet what is the harm, if only we
move and change inwardly in harmony with the ambient flux? Why this
mania for naming and measuring and mastering what is carrying us so
merrily along? Why shouldn't the intellect be vague while the heart is
comfortable?
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