“Convalescence is a purification and a rebirth. Never is the sense of life as sweet as it is after the anguish of pain; and never is the human soul more inclined to goodness and faith than after having gazed into the abyss of death. Man understands, when healing, that thought, desire, will, consciousness of life, are not life. Something in him is more vigilant than thought, more constant than desire, more potent than will, more profound even than consciousness; and it is the substance, the nature of his being. He understands that his real life is, as it were, the one not lived by him; it is the combination of involuntary, spontaneous, unconscious, instinctive sensations; it is the harmonious and mysterious activity of living vegetation; it is the imperceptible development of all metamorphoses and all renewals. It is precisely that life within him that carries out the miracles of convalescence: it closes wounds, remedies losses, reconnects broken tissues, mends lacerated flesh, restores the mechanism of organs, reinfuses the veins with the richness of blood, ties once more around the eyes the blindfold of love, weaves once more the crown of dreams around the head, rekindles the flame of hope in the heart, opens once more the wings of the chimeras of fantasy.”