H. B. Marriott Watson

“ The gates of your soul swing open for an instant; but ere your eye can spy with certainty upon the inner sanctuary it has clapped to again, and you are left to wonder on your own secrets. How much is there in the spirit of man without his knowledge? ”

“ The sights and visions are too delicate, too fleeting for utterance, even for distinct comprehension. The flames transfigure all. When you enter therein you leave the world of coherence and form behind you, and live only with impalpable presences and undefined desires. There are castles and palaces, it is true, glimmering through diaphanous veils of mist; there are caverns beyond caverns of mystical light reaching from space to space till they vanish in the glowing recesses. ”

“ And whatever marvels pass before you, these fantasies—so swift, so instant, as to slip the nimblest mind—leave by their passage a sweet and thrilling contentment, a self-sufficient ecstasy. You will perceive that you are communing with a higher sphere, are admitted to a transcendent company. ”

“ They impress the soul with a certain mark, and sail forthwith out of vision. Your hold upon your own mind is at this time very insecure, and you flutter with the flames in and out of sanity. For to feel and to be unable to refer your feeling to its components is to verge on madness. ”

“ The mind assumes the quality of a mirror, and reflects each momentary change of the ashes with sensitive precision. In a minute you will have suffered as many sensations as in other times would crowd a life. There is no stability nor rest in the ethereal construction of the embers, and your mind, too, wanders on wings. ”

“ To say you are building castles in the embers is to interpret your dreams heinously: you will never see in the fire one single vision that ministers to your vulgar ambitions or aspirations. Wealth and prosperity, long life and happiness—these have no place in the suggestions of the fire ”

“ Your hands rubbing at your knees, your body relaxing in a gentle glow, your eyes set with some gratitude upon the occasion of your comfort, you will drift and pass into another world: a world of the rarest illusions, a world of exquisite and intangible thoughts and fancies. ”

“ The evil humours of this Septentrion prey upon the weaker bodies; for the more part, though we keep at odds, we exact therefrom many definite pleasures and one particular ecstasy. Each season has its individual habits, proper to the respective rigours, and by these our human kind maintains itself in harmony with its circumstances, and derives from these its separate delights. ”