The room thought-of, namely, has many
thought-of couplings with many thought-of
things. Some of these couplings are inconstant,
others are stable. In the reader's personal history
the room occupies a single date -- he saw
it only once perhaps, a year ago. Of the house's
history, on the other hand, it forms a permanent
ingredient. Some couplings have the curious
stubbornness, to borrow Royce's term, of
fact; others show the fluidity of fancy -- we let
them come and go as we please. Grouped with
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the rest of its house, with the name of its town,
of its owner, builder, value, decorative plan,
the room maintains a definite foothold, to
which, if we try to loosen it, it tends to return
and to reassert itself with force.(1) With these
associates, in a word, it coheres, while to other
houses, other towns, other owners, etc., it shows
no tendency to cohere at all. The two collections,
first of its cohesive, and, second, of its
loose associates, inevitably come to be contrasted.
We call the first collection the system
of external realities, in the midst of which the
room, as 'real,' exists; the other we call the
stream of internal thinking, in which, as a
'mental image,' it for a moment floats.
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