I possessed, even as a child, an unusual share of what phrenologists
call Concentrativeness. The power of absorption, of self-forgetfulness,
was at the same time a source of delight and a torment. Lost in some
wild dream or absurd childish speculation, my insensibility to outward
things was chastised as carelessness or a hardened indifference to
counsel. With a memory almost marvellous to retain those things which
appealed to my imagination, I blundered painfully over the commonest
tasks. While I frequently repeated the Sunday hymn, at dinner, I was too
often unable to give the least report of the sermon. Withdrawn into my
corner of the pew, I gave myself up, after the enunciation of the text,
to a complete abstraction, which took no note of time or place. Fixing
my eyes upon a knot in one of the panels under the pulpit, I sat
moveless during the hour and a half which our worthy old clergyman
required for the expounding of the seven parts of his discourse. They
could never accuse me of sleeping, however; for I rarely even winked.
The closing hymn recalled me to myself, always with a shock, or sense of
pain, and sometimes even with a temporary nausea.
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