Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call the
reality?--not so grand or so strong, it may be, but always
lovelier? Fair as is the gliding sloop on the shining sea, the
wavering, trembling, unresting sail below is fairer still. Yea,
the reflecting ocean itself, reflected in the mirror, has a
wondrousness about its waters that somewhat vanishes when I turn
towards itself. All mirrors are magic mirrors. The commonest
room is a room in a poem when I turn to the glass. (And this
reminds me, while I write, of a strange story which I read in the
fairy palace, and of which I will try to make a feeble memorial
in its place.) In whatever way it may be accounted for, of one
thing we may be sure, that this feeling is no cheat; for there is
no cheating in nature and the simple unsought feelings of the
soul. There must be a truth involved in it, though we may but in
part lay hold of the meaning. Even the memories of past pain are
beautiful; and past delights, though beheld only through clefts
in the grey clouds of sorrow, are lovely as Fairy Land. But how
have I wandered into the deeper fairyland of the soul, while as
yet I only float towards the fairy palace of Fairy Land! The
moon, which is the lovelier memory or reflex of the down-gone
sun, the joyous day seen in the faint mirror of the brooding
night, had rapt me away.

I sat up in the boat. Gigantic forest trees were about me;
through which, like a silver snake, twisted and twined the great
river. The little waves, when I moved in the boat, heaved and
fell with a plash as of molten silver, breaking the image of the
moon into a thousand morsels, fusing again into one, as the
ripples of laughter die into the still face of joy. The sleeping