Time, the consoler, time, the rich carrier of all
changes, dries the freshest tears by obtruding new figures, new
costumes, new roads, on our eye, new voices on our ear. As the west
wind lifts up again the heads of the wheat which were bent down and
lodged in the storm, and combs out the matted and dishevelled grass
as it lay in night-locks on the ground, so we let in time as a drying
wind into the seed-field of thoughts which are dank and wet, and
low-bent. Time restores to them temper and elasticity. How fast we
forget the blow that threatened to cripple us. Nature will not sit
still; the faculties will do somewhat; new hopes spring, new
affections twine, and the broken is whole again.
Time consoles, but Temperament resists the impression of pain.
Nature proportions her defence to the assault. Our human being is
wonderfully plastic, if it cannot win this satisfaction here, it
makes itself amends by running out there and winning that. It is
like a stream of water, which, if dammed up on one bank, over-runs
the other, and flows equally at its own convenience over sand, or
mud, or marble.
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