Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1888-02-02
MENTAL VAGARlES,
The Bread-and- Butter Moments of TIN
Human Mind.

The Bread-and Butter Moments of the
Human Mind.
1t is astonishing how insensible we
sometimes are to the most beautiful
or sublime spectacles. Noble scenes,
which at another time would inspire
the imagination and thrill the heart
with tumult of emotion, now unfold
their glory before our unmoved eyes,
and the humdrum thoughts plod along
their accus' ON d way. Travellers
know this phenomenon very we'll.
Ely Cathedral lives in my memory as
delicious vision of solemn loneliness:
but when my friends praise York
Minister hardly recall that 1 was
ever there. This difference is to be
ascribed 10 the fact that in York my
brain happened to be dough or putty.
for the time being, and in no respect
on the architecture of the mirs en-
remember that George Sand had this
experience in her voyage to Italy.
But the same phlegmatic seizure
often occurs to us at home and IN
familiar surroundings. Three nights
ago standing at my window, 1 saw
the full m Don rise superbly through a
low horizon drapery of .hadowed
cloud-folds. and l said to myself: Let
us go walk in the garden, and drink
in the splenlor of this celestial spec
tacle. So l sought my favorite pacing
ground. wide path from the round
rose-bed to the elm tree. running be-
tyvaan limos of sfafaIr Tbnro
had been purifying rain, and the sky
was deepened to its most lustrous
dark, the soft bllow-edges of the few
heeces, swimming over across the big
moon, caught, turn by turn, faint
tinge of halo colors. The moon was
dazzling. Who can believe that mere
sunshine. falling on mere rock and
sand, will reflect such a white
cold intensity of light? I
gazed intently on the binding
shield. as if to compel it to seem
to me what it really is-the big globe,
rolling there, dizzily unsupported in
in empty space. l said: THAT dis
lance across the bullying disk is about
that which the Plcific railroad tray
erses across our continent Let me
try to imagine the little train full of
earth inhabitants, creeping around
yonder point of shadow. and across
the bridgeless nose of the man in the
moon" For an instant the concep-
ton of the globular form and the enor-
nous bulk, swinging on its rounds.
almost touched on the confine; of my
expectant imagination; then fled away,
unseizable, and left but the silvery
spot, stuck there inadequate
ly against the blue ceiling, so ridicu-
lousy near that even the lighter clouds
pass behind, instead of before it, and
venturous balloon might be capable of
humping at any rash discharge
of ballast.
Then took up my pacing back and
forth. The broad silvered leaves Of
the cannas seemed to float motionless
in the great flood of light, aud beneath
each hung its motionless black shade.
Every shadow of every delicate bough
and twig of the beech and the elm was
lace; and bough and twig themselves,
less distinct and more ethereal
than their shadows. were only the
mentally-conceived patterns, or Pla-
tonic ideas. of the lace, lowering above
it in the air. What a my FERROUS and
glorious night, and what sublest and
most celestial dreams should throng
the brain at such an hour! Back and
forth, to and fro. I paced; and what,
think you, were the sublime ideas /
found in my brain, as l suddenly be-
came aware of myself, after some min
utes of floating in that sea of
twice-distilled and -travers-
ing radiance? was listening
with lively displeasure to the
squeaking of my own new shoes. l
was thinking, "How can this intol-
cradle thing be cured?" 1 was pictur-
ing in my imagination the sedulo
shoemaker anxiously handling the
superinteguments, and discussing with
me the possible ways and means of
silencing this music of abandoned
soles. / remembered that some one
had once recommended a hypodermic
injection of pumice stone. AS turn
ed from the shadow back into the full
flood of radiance. 1 found myself Won
dering whether the leathern layers
would have to be unstitched. or whether
any thing could be done with a gimlet.
1 saw that the whole magnificent
spectacle of the night was being
wasted on such an insect as l. and that
the most suitable scheme was to 90 in
gloriously to bed.-AtLanttc Monthly.