String My Thoughts Together

Another lady, in some ways very different to Lady Slane but in her memories a little similiar. I really enjoyed reading, or rather devouring a couple of train journeyseant it was swallowed up rather quickly, my second DE Stevenson - Mrs Tim of the regiment. This passage slightly sums it up, and is also the diary entry for my birthday.


'...a blessed feeling of idleness encompasses my soul....
My thoughts drift across the garden and hang upon the trees like fairy lights, or curl upwards and vanish like the smoke of Burnside chimney. I can take a thought from the cupboard of my memory - just as I take a dress from my wardrobe - give it a little shake and put it on, or fold it away.
... How nice it is to lie here in blameness idleness, and let these vagrant memories flow through my body like a cool stream!
Somewhere in the world there must be a formula (am I trembling upon the edge of it now?) which, could I but grasp it, would reveal to me the Secret of the Universe. For there must be a secret, of course; the world would never roll over and over on its way through Time and Space if everyone's thoughts were as vagrant and purposeless as mine. This secret, once known, would string my thoughts together like a necklace of pearls.
But where to look for the secret - where to find it? Those mountains, dreaming so peacefully in the sunshine - do they possess it? ...Shall I find it in the swallow's jagged flight, as it darts across the garden in pursuit of flies? Shall I find it in the call of the cuckoo, echoing sadly from the pine-clad hills? Or is it hidden deep in the hearts of human beings - a piece here and a piece there - so that if you could find all the pieces and fit them together, the puzzle would be complete? But the hearts of humans beings are so difficult to find...' DE Stevenson Mrs Tim and the Regiment

idleness

Where does the secret lie for you?