y traces that had faded even to _themselves_ in
middle life, whilst they often forget altogether the whole intermediate
stages of their experience. This shows that naturally, and without
violent agencies, the human brain is by tendency a palimpsest.]

[Footnote 12: "_Glimmering._"--As I have never allowed myself to covet
any man's ox nor his ass, nor any thing that is his, still less would it
become a philosopher to covet other people's images, or metaphors. Here,
therefore, I restore to Mr Wordsworth this fine image of the revolving
wheel, and the glimmering spokes, as applied by him to the flying
successions of day and night. I borrowed it for one moment in order to
point my own sentence; which being done, the reader is witness that I
now pay it back instantly by a note made for that sole purpose. On the
same principle I often borrow their seals from young ladies--when
closing my letters. Because there is sure to be some tender sentiment
upon them about "memory," or "hope," or "roses," or "reunion:" and my
correspondent must be a sad brute who is not touched by the eloquence of
the seal, even if his taste is so bad that he remains deaf to mine.]

[Footnote 13: This, the reader will be aware, applies chiefly to the
cotton and tobacco States of North America; but not to them only: on
which account I have not scrupled to figure the sun, which looks down
upon slavery, as _tropical_--no matter if strictly within the tropics,
or simply so near to them as to produce a similar climate.]

[Footnote 14: "_Sublime Goddesses._"--The word [Greek: semnos] is
usually rendered _venerable_ in dictionaries; not a very flattering
epithet for females. But by weighing a number of passages in which the
word is used pointedly, I am disposed to think that it comes nearest to
our idea of the _sublime_; as near as a Greek word _could_ come.]

[Footnote 15: The reader, who wishes at all to understand the course of
these Confessions, ought not to pass over this dream-legend. There is no
great wonder that a vision, which occupied my waking thoughts in those
years, should re-appear in my dreams. It was in fact a legend recurring
in sleep, most of which I had myself silently written or sculptured in
my daylight reveries. But its importance to the present Confessions is
this--that it rehearses or prefigures their course. This FIRST part
belongs to Madonna. The THIRD belongs to the "Mater Suspiriorum," and
will be entitled _The Pariah Worlds_. The