398 ADDITIONAL PHENOMENA OF NATURAL MAGIC. 



he had seen, and striving to explain it to himself, when he 

 at last recollected that in his boyhood, many years before, 

 when he had given himself up to the reading of romance- 

 literature, at the period when it was most in fashion, he 

 had been in the habit of identifying himself with the sub- 

 jects he had read ; and being of a peculiarly intense 

 character, with a highly-picturesque imagination, had on 

 many occasions during his solitary country rambles aban- 

 doned himself to the enthusiasm of the time and imagined 

 himself one of the characters in just such chivalrous and 

 romantic pageants ; and he then felt fully satisfied that 

 some peculiarity in the appearance of the road at the 

 point where he had just beheld the spectacle mentioned 

 had recalled the whole association of ideas connected with 

 a past visit to the spot, and revived in this vivid form a 

 day-dream of his youth. 



The mere vividness, however, of such an incident was 

 its only peculiarity. The association of ideas is so strong 

 and so well known, that we can scarce hear certain subjects 

 mentioned, or look upon certain articles, without having at 

 once a long train of the past suggested to the mind's eye, 

 and the intensity with which the subject presents itself 

 often passes unnoticed on account of its being expected 

 and a matter of course. Thus the presence of an article 

 of furniture such as an old chair will set the fancy into a 

 trance of contemplation as to some departed and venerable 

 occupant, and the whole thought in connection with it will 

 be pictured by the mind, for it is a mistake to say we 

 think in language only ; we think in pictures also, just as 

 much as we dream in pictures, and the only reason why 

 such pictures do not strike us with surprise is that they 

 are, if not pictures resulting from direct volition, at all 

 events pictures tacitly acquiesced in, and therefore such as 

 we are mentally prepared for. It is in fact only when we 

 think without the will or consent that the imagery of the 



