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. All
because our minds, our memories are made like that. If we see a thing
once, or several times, we see it ever after as we first saw it; if we
go on seeing it every day or every week for years and years, we do not
register a countless series of new distinct impressions, recording all
its changes: the new impressions fall upon and obliterate the others,
and it is like a series of photographs, not arranged side by side for
future inspection, but in a pile, the top one alone remaining visible.
Looking at this insipid face you would not believe, if told, that once
upon a time it was beautiful to you and had a great charm. The early
impressions are lost, the charm forgotten.
This reminds me of the incident I set out to narrate when I wrote
"Dimples" at the head of this note. I was standing at a busy corner in
a Kensington thoroughfare waiting for a bus, when a group of three
ladies appeared and came to a stand a yard or two from me and waited,
too, for the traffic to pass before attempting to cross to the other
side. One was elderly and feeble and was holding the arm of another of
the trio, who was young and pretty. Her age was perhaps twenty; she was
of medium height, slim, with a nice figure and nicely dressed. She was
a blonde, with light blue-grey eyes and fluffy hair of pale gold:
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 72 of 127
Words from 37101 to 37612
of 66164
