itself agreeable. "A fast train and a 'slow' neighbor," is my motto.
Many times, when I have got upon the cars, expecting to be magnetized
into an hour or two of blissful reverie, my thoughts shaken up by the
vibrations into all sorts of new and pleasing patterns, arranging
themselves in curves and nodal points, like the grains of sand in
Chladni's famous experiment,--fresh ideas coming up to the surface,
as the kernels do when a measure of corn is jolted in a farmer's
wagon,--all this without volition, the mechanical impulse alone keeping
the thoughts in motion, as the mere act of carrying certain watches in
the pocket keeps them wound up,--many times, I say, just as my brain was
beginning to creep and hum with this delicious locomotive intoxication,
some dear detestable friend, cordial, intelligent, social, radiant, has
come up and sat down by me and opened a conversation which has broken
my day-dream, unharnessed the flying horses that were whirling along
my fancies and hitched on the old weary omnibus-team of every-day
associations, fatigued my hearing and attention, exhausted my voice, and
milked the breasts of my thought dry during the hour when they should
have been filling themselves full of fresh juices.
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