by magic, where but
yesterday I plucked fruit from overladen branches, or flung myself
to rest among the tall grass or ripening grain.

"But other changes than this have marked the passage of time.
Changes that cause them to sink into obscurity in comparison.
Thousands in our goodly city have passed from the cradle to the
grave, during the years that have been allotted to me; and thousands
have proved that all the promises of early years were vain. All
external mutations would attract but little attention, did they not
recall other and more important changes. Thought and feeling have
put on forms, as new and strange, but not, alas! so full of happy
indications. Prosperity has crowned the toil and enterprise of our
citizens; but how few of the many who were prosperous when I was in
my prime are among the wealthy now! How few of the families that
filled the circles of fashion then, have left any of their scattered
members to grace the glittering circles now! The wheel of fortune
has ceased not its revolutions for a moment. Hopes that once spread
their gay leaves to the pleasant airs have been blighted and
scattered by the chilling winds of adversity.

"Pausing and leaning upon my staff, as I have said, I often muse
thus, when some object recalls the memory of one and another who
have finished their course and been gathered to their fathers. In
every city and village, wherever there is human life, with its evil
passions and good affections, there are histories to stir the heart
and unseal the fountains of tears. Truth, it is said, is strange,
stranger than fiction; and never was there a truer sentiment
uttered. In all the fictions that I have read, nothing has met my
eye so strange and heart-stirring as the incidents in real life that
have transpired in the families of some of our own citizens. Any
one, of years and observation, in any city, will bear a like
testimony. The circumstance of their actual occurrence, and the fact
that the present reality diminishes, from many causes, our surprise
at events, tend to make us think lightly of what is going on around
us. And, besides this, we ordinarily see only the surface of
society. The writer of fiction unveils the mind and heart of those
he brings into action, and we see all. We perceive their thoughts
and feel their emotions. But, if we could look into the bosoms of
those we meet daily, and read there the hopes and fears that excite
or depress, we should perceive all arou