e willing to skip over certain portions of it that separate us from
favourite objects, that irritate ourselves at the unnecessary delay.
The young are prodigal of life from a superabundance of it; the old
are tenacious on the same score, because they have little left, and
cannot enjoy even what remains of it.

For my part, I set out in life with the French Revolution, and that
event had considerable influence on my early feelings, as on those of
others. Youth was then doubly such. It was the dawn of a new era, a
new impulse had been given to men's minds, and the sun of Liberty rose
upon the sun of Life in the same day, and both were proud to run their
race together. Little did I dream, while my first hopes and wishes
went hand in hand with those of the human race, that long before my
eyes should close, that dawn would be overcast, and set once more in
the night of despotism--"total eclipse!" Happy that I did not. I felt
for years, and during the best part of my existence, _heart-whole_ in
that cause, and triumphed in the triumphs over the enemies of man! At
that time, while the fairest aspirations of the human mind seemed
about to be realized, ere the image of man was defaced and his breast
mangled in scorn, philosophy took a higher, poetry could afford a
deeper range. At that time, to read the "Robbers," was indeed
delicious, and to hear

"From the dungeon of the tower time-rent,
That fearful voice, a famish'd father's cry,"

could be borne only amidst the fulness of hope, the crash of the fall
of the strongholds of power, and the exulting sounds of the march of
human freedom. What feelings the death-scene in Don Carlos sent into
the soul! In that headlong career of lofty enthusiasm, and the joyous
opening of the prospects of the world and our own, the thought of
death crossing it, smote doubly cold upon the mind; there was a
stifling sense of oppression and confinement, an impatience of our
present knowledge, a desire to grasp the whole of our existence in one
strong embrace, to sound the mystery of life and death, and in order
to put an end to the agony of doubt and dread, to burst through our
prison-house, and confront the King of Terrors in his grisly
palace!... As I was writing out this passage, my miniature-picture
when a child lay on the mantle-piece, and I took it out of the case to
look at it. I could perceive few traces of myself in it; but there was
the same placid brow, the dimpled mouth, the sam