My companions,
being much older than I was, regarded not my reading.
These exalted emotional states, similar to that just described,
used occasionally to come to me under other conditions about this
time, or later. I recall one such, one summer morning when I was
walking on the top of a stone wall that ran across the summit of
one of those broad-backed hills which you yourself know. I had in
my hand a bit of a root of a tree that was shaped much like a
pistol. As I walked along the toppling stones, I flourished this,
and called and shouted and exulted and let my enthusiasm have free
swing. It was a moment of supreme happiness. I was literally
intoxicated; with what I do not know. I only remember that life
seemed amazingly beautiful--I was on the crest of some curious
wave of emotion, and my soul sparkled and flashed in the sunlight.
I have haunted that old stone wall many times since that day, but
I have never been able again to experience that thrill of joy and
triumph. The cup of life does not spontaneously bead and sparkle
in this way except in youth, and probably with many people it does
not even then. But I know from what you have told me that you have
had the experience. When one is trying to cipher out his past, and
separate the factors that have played an important part in his
life, such incidents, slight though they are, are significant.
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