s [18]about nature; about the material world
upon which childhood has alighted, and of which it must necessarily
be ignorant; about clouds and storms and tempests; and of the heavens
above, sun and moon and stars! I remember well when the fable of the
Happy Valley in Rasselas was a reality to me; when I thought the sun
rose and set for us alone, and how I pitied the glorious orb, as it sunk
behind the western mountain, to think that it must pass through a sort
of Hades, through a dark underworld, to come up in the east again. It is
a curious fact, that the Egyptians in the morning of the world had the
same ideas. Shall I blame Providence for this? Could it be otherwise? If
earthly things are so mistaken, is it strange that heavenly things are?
And especially shall I call in question this order of things,--this
order, whether of men's or of the world's progress, when I see that it
is not only inevitable, the necessary allotment for an experimenting and
improving nature, which is human nature, but when I see too that each
stage of progress has its own special advantages; that "everything
is beautiful in its time;" that fears, superstitions, errors, quicken
imagination and restrain passion as truly as doubts, reasonings,
strugglings, strengthen the judgment, mature the moral nature, and lead
to light?

I am dilating upon all this too much, perhaps. I let my pen run.
Sitting down here in the blessed [19]country home, with nothing else in
particular just now to do, at the age of sixty-three, I have time and
am disposed to look back into my early life and to reason upon it; and
although I have nothing uncommon to relate, yet what pertains to me has
its own interest and significance, just as if no other being had ever
existed, and therefore I set down my experience and my reflections
simply as they present themselves to me.

In casting back my eyes upon this earliest period of my life, there are
some things which I recall, which may amuse my grandchildren, if they
should ever be inclined to look over these pages, and some of which they
may find curious, as things of a bygone time.

Children now know nothing of what "'Lection" was in those days, the
annual period, that is, when the newly elected State government came in.
It was in the last week in May. How eager were we boys to have the corn
planted before that time! The playing could not be had till the work was
done. The sports and the entertainments were very simple. Runni