Many Conversions in a Lifetime––A man may, most men do, undergo this process of renovation many times in their lives; whenever an idea strong enough to divert his thoughts (as we most correctly say) from all that went before is introduced, the man becomes a new creature; when he is ‘in love,’ for example; when the fascinations of art or of nature take hold of him; an access of responsibility may bring about a sudden and complete conversion:––
The breath no sooner left his father’s body
But that his wildness, mortified in him,
Seem’d to die too; yea, at that very moment,
Consideration, like an angel came
And whipped the offending Adam out of him;
Leaving his body as a paradise
To envelop and contain celestial spirits.
Here is a picture––psychologically true, anyway; Shakespeare makes no mistakes in psychology––of an immediate absolute conversion. The conversion may be to the worse, alas, and not to the better, and the value of the conversion must depend upon the intrinsic worthiness of the idea by whose instrumentality it is brought about. The point worth securing is, that man carries in his physical structure the conditions of renovation; conditions, so far as we can conceive, always in working order, always ready to be put in force.