On a Chinese Screen (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781985384439)

I have always noticed a prevalent want of courage, even among persons of superior intelligence and culture, as to imparting their own psychological experiences when those have been of a strange sort. Almost all men are afraid that what they could relate in such wise would find no parallel or response in a listener's internal life, and might be suspected or laughed at. A truthful traveller, who should have seen some extraordinary creature in the likeness of a sea-serpent, would have no fear of mentioning it; but the same traveller, having had some singular presentiment, impulse, vagary of thought, vision (so-called), dream, or other remarkable mental impression, would hesitate considerably before he would own to it. To this reticence I attribute much of the obscurity in which such subjects are involved. We do not habitually communicate our experiences of these subjective things as we do our experiences of objective creation. The consequence is, that the general stock of experience in this regard appears exceptional, and really is so, in respect of being miserably imperfect. In what I am going to relate, I have no intention of setting up, opposing, or supporting, any theory whatever.

Author: W. Somerset Maugham
ISBN-10: 1985384434
ISBN-13: 9781985384439
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Language: English
Published: 09/11/2018
Pages: 148
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.46lbs
Size: 9.02h x 5.98w x 0.32d