- Past Events Appear Unreal, And The Last Few Years Seem To
Have Escaped From The Connecting Chain Of Former Life.
Scarcely
can I believe in the bygone days of glorious freedom, when I
wandered through that beautiful country, unfettered by the laws
or customs of conventional life.
The white cliffs of Old England rose hazily on the horizon, and
greeted many anxious eyes as the vessel rushed proudly on with
her decks thronged with a living freight, all happy as children
in the thoughts of home. The sun shone brightly and gave a warm
welcome on our arrival; and as the steamer moored alongside the
quay, an hour sufficed to scatter the host of passengers who had
so closely dwelt together, as completely as the audience of a
theatre when the curtain falls. That act of life is past -
"exeunt omnes," and a new scene commences. We are in England.
A sudden change necessarily induces a comparison, and I imagine
there are few who have dwelt much among the Tropics who do not
acquire a distaste for the English climate, and look back with
lingering hopes to the verdant shores they have left so far
behind. The recollection of absent years, which seem to have
been the summer of life, makes the chill of the present feel
doubly cold, and our thoughts still cling to the past, while we
strive against the belief that we never can recall those days
again.
How, as my thoughts wander back to former scenes every mountain
and valley reappears in the magic glass of memory!
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