Wind in the Willows providing a definition of "epiphany"

Chapter 7 of Wind in the Willows is aptly entitled "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn." These days, for many of us, strains of Pink Floyd will drift into our head at these words, but Kenneth Grahame came before Pink Floyd was even a twinkle in Syd Barrett's eye. "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" also happens to be the chapter of the major epiphany in WitW. "Then suddenly the Mole felt a great Awe upon him...an awe that smote and held him and, without seeing, he knew it could only mean that some august Presence was very, very near...All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered" (Grahame 124-5). Here, Rat and Mole glimpse their "Him," and are never the same.
This leads to another idea we discussed in class--what happens when an epiphany is over. The epiphany always seems like a good thing--an amazing moment that changes the course of your life, or so was my vague idea of the definition prior to this class. I was, in fact, always waiting for that epiphany--the moments that come so few and far between and truly change you and make your life happen.
However, the reactions of Rat and Mole after their shining moment ends had me rethinking this idea: "...they stared blankly, in dumb misery deepening as they slowly realized all they had seen and all they had lost...As one awakened suddenly from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, and can recapture nothing but a dimes of the beauty of it, the beauty! Till that, too, fades away in its turn, and the dreamer bitterly accepts the hard, cold waking" (Grahame 126-7).
This leads me to compare the epiphany to a dream, and consider that with the ending of a epiphany, something is lost. When a beautiful dream ends, something is lost too, and sometimes returning to reality can be difficult and painful. Sometimes, one could be tempted to wish the dream would be real. Is reality better than any dream? Most would say yes, and I would be forced to agree--and to compare this to something completely different, it's like an old fairy tale, where the princess is captured and taken to a perfect land that is too good to be true, and opts to return to her less-beautiful home. She chooses to live without the prince because to trick someone into loving you isn't true love at all.
Along with the love theme, there a famous quote from Tennyson's poem, In Memoriam A.H.H.: "Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." Perhaps a somewhat cliched quote, but it rings true for epiphanies, in some cases, same as with love. Is it better to continue through life without experiencing this epiphany, or better to experience it and try to move on, while dreaming of it?
Epiphanies, after reading "Piper at the Gates of Dawn," are those unforgettable moments that make you truly experience life. Maybe you'll miss this moment for the rest of your life, or move on towards the next, or maybe the other smaller beauties in life will help distract you, as it is for Rat and Mole: "A capricious little breeze, dancing up from the surface of the water...blew lightly and caressingly in their faces, and with its soft touch came instant oblivion. For this is the last best gift that the kindly demigod is careful to bestow on those to whom he has revealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness. Lest the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and pleasure, and the great haunting memory should spoil all the after-lives of little animals helped out of difficulties, in order that they should be happy and lighthearted as before" (126).