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CHAPTER XXI |
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He Visits the Wreck and Obtams many Stores from it—Again Thinks of Quitting the Island—Has a Remarkable Dream
T
HERE are some secret moving springs in the affections which, when they are set agoing by some object in view, or be it some object, though not in view, yet rendered present to the mind by the power of imagination, that motion carries out the soul by its impetuosity to such violent, eager embracings of the object, that the absence of it is insupportable.
Such were these earnest wishings that but one man had been saved! "Oh that it had been but one!" I believe I repeated the words a thousand times; and the desires were so moved by it, that when I spoke the words my hands would clinch together, and my fingers press the palms of my hands, that if I had had any soft thing in my hand, it would have crushed it involuntarily ; and my teeth in my head would strike together, and set against one another so strong, that for some time I could not part them again.
Let the naturalists explain these things, and the reason and manner of them. All I can say to them is to describe the fact, which was even surprising to me when I found it, though I knew not from what it should proceed. It was doubtless the effect of ardent wishes, and of strong ideas formed in my mind,
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