- end_line
- 14633
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-18T02:42:20.403Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 14611
- text
- thoughts. While composing a little treatise on Eternity, I had the
curiosity to place a mirror before me; and ere long saw reflected
there, a curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere over
my head. The invariable moisture of my hair, while plunged in deep
thought, after six cups of hot tea in my thin shingled attic, of an
August noon; this seems an additional argument for the above
supposition.
And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to
behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild
head overhung by a canopy of vapor, engendered by his incommunicable
contemplations, and that vapor—as you will sometimes see it—glorified
by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts.
For, d’ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate
vapor. And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my
mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a
heavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny;
but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts of
all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this
combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who
regards them both with equal eye.
- title
- Chunk 3