Page:The Gift, a Christmas and New Year's Present for 1842.djvu/164



I come of a race noted for vigour of fancy and ardour of passion. Pyrros is my name. Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled whether madness be or be not the loftier intelligence—whether much that is glorious—whether all that is profound—do 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 the dreamers by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in awaking, 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 that mere knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however rudderless or compassless, into the vast ocean of the 'light ineffable,' and, again, like the adventurers 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