be haunted by it, and cannot rid himself of the tormenting tune-fiend by even the most strenuous resolve and effort to do so. It, like a fever, must, and will run its course. We also habituate ourselves to certain forms of expression, and ideal associations. Thus much by way of preface.
Now it was the involuntary obedience of my soul to the Habit-law, that caused it to array itself in the semblance of the old and well-remembered dress. The law of the association of ideas gave the 'blue caste,' the wrinkles and the emaciation which so surprised me.
Presently, however, I passed under the operation of higher laws of nature, and more interior ones of my own immortal soul. One of the first, and most important of these last, is the law of Vastation—whereby the soul throws off the old loves, preparatory to entering upon new ones. Its first involuntary act, in the second, as in the first case, was to clothe itself; but no longer subject to the old law of association, and coming under a new one, it rejected the things of memory, and assumed the garb corresponding to its new-born loves,—all in conformity to a law within itself. [In dreams, the garb and surroundings are typical or symbolic of mental, moral and esthetic states: therefore it is possible to construct an exact science of dream-interpretation.] And the drapery assumed was not merely the result of caprice or an involuntary fantastic taste, pride or vainness, but was the legitimate and orderly result of the triple law, whose elements are fitness, expression, and correspondence The white drapery symbolized, if not my absolute purity, at least my aspirations thitherward—
