Their joys they sketch with an indifferent skill, like HEINE'S monk, who made rather a poor description of Heaven, but was "gifted in Hell," which he depicted with dreadful vigor.
I find it a great aid to recall what I can of bygone beautiful associations, and then sleep on them with a resolve that they shall recur in complete condition.

He who will thus resolutely clean up his past life and clear away from it all sorrow _as well as he can_, and refurnish it with beautiful memories, or make it better, _coute que coute_, will do himself more good than many a doleful moral adviser ever dreamed of.

This is what I mean by _self-fascination_--the making, as it were, by magic art, one's own past and self more charming than we ever deemed it possible to be.

We thus fascinate ourselves.

Those who believe that everything which is bygone has gone to the devil are in a wretched error.