THE EQUINOX
of high activity, an intuition of the fact that the sensation
shall be perceived again in the future unveiling that is to
throw open all the past. Prophetically she notes it down
upon the indestructible leaves of her diary, assured that it is
to come out in the future revelation. Yet we who, from the
tendency of our thought, reject all claims to any knowledge of
the future, can only acknowledge perceptions as of the present
or the past, and accordingly refer the dual realisation to some
period gone by. We perceive the correspondence of two
sensations, but, by an instantaneous process, give the second
one a wrong position in the succession of experiences. The
soul is regarded as the historian when she is in reality the
sibyl; but the misconception takes place in such a microscopic
portion of time that detection is impossible. In the hasheesh
expansion of seconds into minutes, or even according to a
much mightier ratio, there is an opportunity thoroughly to
scrutinise the hitherto evanescent phenomena, and the truth
comes out. How many more such prophecies as these may
have been rejected through the gross habit of the body we may
never know until spirit vindicates her claim in a court where
she must have audience.
In this world we are but half spirit; we are thus able to
hold only the perceptions and emotions of half an orb. Once
fully rounded into symmetry ourselves, we shall have strength
to bear the pressure of influences from a whole sphere of truth
and loveliness.
It is this present half-developed state of ours which makes
the infinitude of the hasheesh awakening so unendurable, even
when its sublimity is the sublimity of delight. We have no
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