hing;
but there is commotion, an eddy, like that of the vorticel which is
drawing thither its destined deposits. The things that draw me are also
themselves moving toward me. The cell is in time filled, emptied and
filled again and again. Particles of this and that remain. Who can
predict what will be the permanent deposit?

The Mendon hills and those, rising continually beyond, caused me many a
heart break, many disillusions, journeyings, pathless and lampless, many
apprenticeships to unprofitable masters. I explored the unknown because
it was unknown and because I knew not what I wanted. There was
disappointment wherever the pursuit ended. I would go on--never
arriving. "Stay, thou art so fair", is not the wish of boys. The
mountains were not so high, the ocean not so vast, the cities not so
immense, no good so good as anticipated. My heart hungered for the
impossible before it had attained the possible; for the fruitage of
things before the plough and the hardened hand; in fine, before
reckoning with those forces which determine the happiness and miseries
of life. But there is compensation for every disappointment and mistaken
dream of childhood and youth. I cherish them fondly as the early drama
of my life, in which, now a spectator, I see the small actor performing
his mimic part with mingled feelings of amusement, censure or sympathy.
When the curtain rises I am once more on my own side of the Mendon
hills; the walls of that first world enclose and protect me. Here I
again recover my first sense of nature and the existence of other
beings; here I discern the inward foreshadowings of what was to attract
and mould me through life.

SHADOWS AND ECHOES

Two things in nature impressed me more than any others in my childhood.
One was the apparent motion of the moon, when I tried to walk or run
away from it. To see it keep an equal pace with me, moving when I moved,
stopping when I stopped, sometimes vexed me and more often amused me.
The heavens are young when we are, close and companionable; they come
down to the earth not more than two miles from where we stand. I tried
many experiments with the moon, when it was full, to see if I could not
outrun the bright and tricksy traveller. My efforts were vain and only
increased my wonder. I never spoke of it nor required an explanation
from my elders. Children ask no questions regarding those simple
operations of nature which they first observe. They remain deep in