it must have
received a great deal of material from the external world. This is
the only way in which its storehouse can be filled. The phantasy is
nourished much in the same way as the body, which is least capable
of any work and enjoys doing nothing just in the very moment when it
receives its food which it has to digest. And yet it is to this very
food that it owes the power which it afterwards puts forth at the
right time.

* * * * *

Opinion is like a pendulum and obeys the same law. If it goes past
the centre of gravity on one side, it must go a like distance on the
other; and it is only after a certain time that it finds the true
point at which it can remain at rest.

* * * * *

By a process of contradiction, distance in space makes things look
small, and therefore free from defect. This is why a landscape looks
so much better in a contracting mirror or in a _camera obscura_, than
it is in reality. The same effect is produced by distance in time. The
scenes and events of long ago, and the persons who took part in them,
wear a charming aspect to the eye of memory, which sees only the
outlines and takes no note of disagreeable details. The present enjoys
no such advantage, and so it always seems defective.

And again, as regards space, small objects close to us look big, and
if they are very close, we may be able to see nothing else, but when
we go a little way off, they become minute and invisible. It is the
same again as regards time. The little incidents and accidents of
every day fill us with emotion, anxiety, annoyance, passion, as long
as they are close to us, when they appear so big, so important, so
serious; but as soon as they are borne down the restless stream of
time, they lose what significance they had; we think no more of them
and soon forget them altogether. They were big only because they were
near.

* * * * *

_Joy_ and _sorrow_ are not ideas of the mind, but affections of the
will, and so they do not lie in the domain of memory. We cannot recall
our joys and sorrows; by which I mean that we cannot renew them. We
can recall only the _ideas_ that accompanied them; and, in particular,
the things we were led to say; and these form a gauge of our feelings
at the time. Hence our memory of joys and sorrows is always imperfect,
and they become a matter of indifference to us as soon as they are
over. Thi