momentary, and seems to coincide with the instant of the transition and
shift of our attention from one thing to another. It is probably
connected with the transfer of energy from one set of faculties to
another set, which occurs, for instance, on our waking from sleep, on
our hearing a bell at night, on our observing any common object, a chair
or a pitcher, at a time when our mind is or has just been thoroughly
preoccupied with something else. This displacement of the attention
occurs in its most notable form when we walk from the study into the
open fields. Nature then attacks us on all sides at once, overwhelms,
drowns, and destroys our old thoughts, stimulates vaguely and all at
once a thousand new ideas, dissipates all focus of thought and dissolves
our attention. If we happen to be mentally fatigued, and we take a walk
in the country, a sense of immense relief, of rest and joy, which
nothing else on earth can give, accompanies this distraction of the mind
from its problems. The reaction fills us with a sense of mystery and
expansion. It brings us to the threshold of those spiritual experiences
which are the obscure core and reality of our existence, ever alive
within us, but generally veiled and sub-conscious. It brings us, as it
were, into the ante-chamber of art, poetry, and music. The condition is
one of excitation and receptiveness, where art may speak and we shall
understand. On the other hand, the condition shows a certain
dethronement of the will and attention which may ally it to the
hypnotic state.

Certain kinds of poetry imitate this method of nature by calling on us
with a thousand voices at once. Poetry deals often with vague or
contradictory statements, with a jumble of images, a throng of
impressions. But in true poetry the psychology of real life is closely
followed. The mysticism is momentary. We are not kept suspended in a
limbo, "trembling like a guilty thing surprised," but are ushered into