LOOKING BACK.
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ho does not cling to the past; to the days when we were what we are no longer? Who, that has taken weary steps on the great high road of mortality, does not love to plunge beneath the lava and ashes of life's volcanic throes, and disinter the buried images of childhood, of days when existence was full of flattering auspices,
"When the heart promised what the fancy drew,"
and the most delusive dreams wore the shape of reality?
The visions of the past rise before us, softened and mellowed by the hues—the idealizing touch, of memory. Bygone hours catch a fictitious radiance in their flight. Their flowers were brighter, their grass greener, their waters more sparkling, their gala days more exhilarating than those of any possible present, or hoped-for future. If there were dark shadows, or harsh coloring, in those pictures, they dissolve out of the violet mists of remembrance. Time, who flings the veil of oblivion
(369)
