recollections, become interesting; the most
painful, broken and softened by time, soothe. How any object that
unexpectedly brings back to us old scenes and associations startles the
mind! What a yearning it creates within us; what a longing to leap
the intermediate space! How fondly we cling to, and try to revive the
impression of all that we then were!

Such tricks hath strong imagination!

In truth we impose upon ourselves, and know not what we wish. It is a
cunning artifice, a quaint delusion, by which, in pretending to be what
we were at a particular moment of time, we would fain be all that we
have since been, and have our lives to come over again. It is not the
little, glimmering, almost annihilated speck in the distance that rivets
our attention and 'hangs upon the beatings of our hearts': it is the
interval that separates us from it, and of which it is the trembling
boundary, that excites all this coil and mighty pudder in the breast.
Into that great gap in our being 'come thronging soft desires' and
infinite regrets. It is the contrast, the change from what we then were,
that arms the half-extinguished recollection with its giant strength,
and lifts the fabric of the affections from its shadowy base. In
contemplating its utmost verge, we overlook the map of our existence,
and re-tread, in apprehension, the journey of life. So it is that in
early youth we strain our eager sight after the pursuits of manhood;
and, as we are sliding off the stage, strive to gather up the toys and
flowers that pleased our thoughtless childhood.

When I was quite a boy my father used to take me to the Montpelier Tea
Gardens at Walworth. Do I go there now? No; the place is deserted, and
its borders and its beds o'erturned. Is there, then, nothing that can

Bring back the hour
Of glory in the grass, of splendour in the flower?

Oh! yes. I unlock the casket of memory, and draw back the warders of the
brain; and there this scene of my infant wanderings still lives unfaded,
or with fresher dyes. A new sense comes upon me, as in a dream; a richer
perfume, brighter colours start out; my eyes dazzle; my heart heaves
with its new load of bliss, and I am a child again. My sensations are
all glossy, spruce, voluptuous, and fine: they wear a candied coat, and
are in holiday trim. I see the beds of larkspur with purple eyes; tall
hollyhocks, red or yellow; the broad sunflowers, caked in gold, with
bees buzzing round them; wildernesses o