It is curious to note the old sea-margins of human thought! Each subsiding century reveals some new mystery; we build where monsters used to hide themselves.
Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.
The pleasant books, that silently among Our household treasures take familiar places, And are to us as if a living tongue Spake from the printed leaves or pictured faces!
Truths that startled the generation in which they were first announced become in the next age the commonplaces of conversation; as the famous airs of operas which thrilled the first audiences come to be played on hand-organs in the streets.
But the nearer the dawn the darker the night, And by going wrong all things come right. Things have been mended that were worse, and the the worse, the nearer they are to mend.