Faint shadows, vapours lightly curled,
Faint murmurs from the meadows come,
Like hints and echoes of the world
To spirits folded in the womb."
* * * * *
But we regain the old familiar places, and, alas! we find that change
has been as busy with them as with us. The signs of decay are upon the
trees; the brook has ceased to flow; the rose-bush has withered to the
ground. There are trees as green and streams as musical and flowers as
sweet as in our youth; but they are not the streams or flowers or trees
which delighted us, and to us they can never be as dear. But a worse
alteration has taken place than any visible in the face of nature. We
discover that we have lost the old habits, the old capacity of
enjoyment; and we soon discover that it was the sympathies, the hopes,
the aspirations of youth which, after all, lent to these early scenes
their rare and irrecoverable attraction.
And thus it was that Miss Herschel found everything changed. A life of
fifty years spent in a certain routine and upon certain objects, had
unfitted her to tread in the old paths.
Pages:
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99