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Show Tlic KtiMiueiiee r a Tenr. One may guess the why and wherefore ! of a tear and yet find it too subtile lo give any account of. A tear may he the poetical resume of so many simultaneous impressions, ihe quintessence of so many opposing thoughts! U is like a drop of one of those precious elixirs of the east which contain the lid- -l twenty plants fused into a single aroma. Sometimes it is the mere m erllow of the soul, the running run-ning over of the cup of reverie. All that one cannot or will not say. all that one tvfuses to confess even to one's self contused, desires, secret trouble, suppressed sup-pressed grief, smothered conflict, voiceless voice-less regret, the emotions we have struggled against, the pain we have Bought to hide, our superstitious fears, our vague sulTei tngs, our restless presentiments, presen-timents, our unrealized dreams, the wounds inflicted upon our ideal, the dissatisfied dis-satisfied languor, the vain hopes, the multitude of small indiscernible ills which accumulate slowly in a corner of the heart like water dropping noiselessly from the roof of a cavern all these mysterious mys-terious movements of the inner life end in an instant uf emotion, and the emotion emo-tion concentrates itself in u tear just vis ible u the edge of the eyelid. For the rest, h-ars express joy as well as sadness. Thev are the symbol of the powerlessness of the soul to restrain its emotion and to remain mistress of itself. Amiel'B Journal, translated by Mrs. Humphrey Ward. |