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ELEONORA
Sub conservatione formae specificae salva anima.
Raymond Lully.
I AM come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor of passion. Men
have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether
madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence--whether much that is
glorious--whether all that is profound--does not spring from disease
of thought--from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general
intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which
escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions they obtain
glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in awakening, to find that they
have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn
something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge
which is of evil. They penetrate, however, rudderless or compassless
into the vast ocean of the "light ineffable," and again, like the
adventures of the Nubian geographer, "agressi sunt mare tenebrarum, quid
in eo esset exploraturi."
We will say, then, that I am mad. I grant, at least, that there are two
distinct conditions of my mental existence--the condition of a lucid
reason, not to be disputed, and belonging to the memory of events
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