But at last, when we are driven almost to despair, and in a semi-passive
state inwardly settling and composing ourselves, the thought comes. How
much is then revealed and becomes possible! New facts and forces are
commanded by it; much of our experience, that was before meaningless
and unavailable, assumes order and comes to our use; and as long as the
breach can be kept open and the detachment perfect, how easily we write!
But if we drop the thread of our idea without knotting it, or looping it
to some fact,--if we stop our work without leaving something inserted
to keep the breach open, how soon all becomes a blank! the wound heals
instantly; the equilibrium which we had for a moment arrested again
asserts itself, and our work is a fragment and must always remain so.
Neither wife nor friends nor fortune nor appetite should call one from
his work, when he is possessed by this spirit and can utter his thought.
We are caught up into these regions rarely enough; let us not come down
till we are obliged.
The fullest development of this law, as it appears in the intellect,
is Analogy. Analogy is the highest form of expression, the poetry of
speech; and is detachment carried so far that it goes full circle and
gives a sense of unity and wholeness again. It is the spheral form
appearing in thought. The idea is not only detached, but is wedded to
some outward object, so that spirit and matter mutually interpret each
other.
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