The Signs Of Change Have Perhaps Not Yet Appeared,
And I Wish Not To See Them.
Good-bye, little one, we part in good time,
and may we never meet again!
Undoubtedly one loses something, but it
cannot balance the gain. The loss in any case was bound to come, and
had I waited for it no gain would have been possible. As it is, I am
like that man in The Pilgrim's Progress, by some accounted mad,
who the more he cast away the more he had. And the way of it is this;
by losing my little charmers before they cease from charming, I make
them mine for always, in a sense. They are made mine because my mind
(other minds, too) is made that way. That which I see with delight I
continue to see when it is no more there, and will go on seeing to the
end: at all events I fail to detect any sign of decay or fading in
these mind pictures. There are people with money who collect gems -
diamonds, rubies and other precious stones - who value their treasures
as their best possessions, and take them out from time to time to
examine and gloat over them. These things are trash to me compared with
the shining, fadeless images in my mind, which are my treasures and
best possessions. But the bright and beauteous images of the little
girl charmers would not have been mine if instead of letting the
originals disappear from my ken I had kept them too long in it.
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