Mood affects perception

“Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and as we pass through them, they prove to be many colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus. From the mountain you see the mountain. We animate what we can, and we see only what we animate. Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them. It depends on the mood of the man, whether he shall see the sunset or the fine poem.”

I feel as though in this passage, Emerson is trying to impart to me that the world is illusory completely in the sense of perception and that perception is based on mood. First, he decrees that “there is no end to illusion”. On some level, everything we see is false and untrue but only because of how we look at it with certain moods. Because he says that the our mood affects our perception, our take on one specific thing could be completely different from one day to another. When we pass through this “string of beads” of emotions, a mountain that was once considered beautiful and inspiring could later seem cold, unfeeling or dangerous and insurmountable. This is one place where I definitely felt as though I understood and agreed with Emerson. I think everyone has experiences where their opinion or perception of something changed based on their mood.