Commonplace Book

'...impregnated as they were with that immediacy of impression which words, simple enough, written in an emotional present, are sometimes able to retain far into the future, when perhaps the opportunities of such emotion can occur no more. Such is the value of a journal, such is the value of all concrete expression. A journal of old feeling is like a telescope through which we see the past history of the heart, not as a mere hazy cloud of distant glory, but separate star by star, moment by moment. The old agonies, the old ecstasies, may thus be repeated for us, as by some diabolical marvel of physical science...'

from The Love Letters of the King by Richard Le Gallienne (Chapter XV)