Goethe

I ran across this quote from Goethe: One feeling which prevailed greatly with me, and could never find an expression odd enough for itself, was a sense of the past and present together in one — a phenomenon which brought something spectral into the present... It must not be forgotten that the closest unions are those of opposites.

This is another piece of the puzzle. I am always trying to describe how reading certain stories (usually mythic fiction, stories by Charles de Lint, Jane Yolen, Terri Windling, etc.) makes me feel. I started by saying they make me feel homesick for someplace I've never been and that might not be real. Then Maureen McQuerry added this to my description: yearning for something longer ago, further away or yet about to be. Recognition of something we have never met but have always known.

The most interesting thing about the Goethe quote is that Goethe was born in the late 18th century...