E. B. White wrote a remarkable essay about visiting the winter rehearsal headquarters of a big circus. He sees something quietly remarkable there, and sets out to preserve the memory of it in his sentences, saying: “As a writing man, or secretary, I have always felt charged with the safekeeping of all unexpected items of worldly or unworldly enchantment, as though I might be held personally responsible if even a small one were to be lost. But it is not easy to communicate anything of this nature.”
In the end, knowing that he may have failed at the task, he notes that at least “I have discharged my duty to my society; and besides, a writer, like an acrobat, must occasionally try a stunt that is too much for him.”
The essay is called “The Ring of Time” and can be found in Essays of E. B. White, in The New Yorker archive, and elsewhere.