No one would know, no one could tell him, precisely what
occurred. And who can know whether--if it be indeed a dream--he has
dreamt it often, or has dreamt once that he had dreamt it often? That
dubious night is entangled in repeated visions during the lonely life a
child lives in sleep; it is intricate with illusions. It becomes the
most mysterious and the least worldly of all memories, a spiritual past.
The word pleasure is too trivial for such a remembrance. A midwinter
long gone by contained the suggestion of such dreams; and the midwinter
of this year must doubtless be preparing for the heart of many an ardent
young child a like legend and a like antiquity. For the old it is a mere
present.
THAT PRETTY PERSON
During the many years in which "evolution" was the favourite word, one
significant lesson--so it seems--was learnt, which has outlived
controversy, and has remained longer than the questions at issue--an
interesting and unnoticed thing cast up by the storm of thoughts. This
is a disposition, a general consent, to find the use and the value of
process, and even to understand a kind of repose in the very wayfaring of
progress. With this is a resignation to change, and something more than
resignation--a delight in those qualities that could not be but for their
transitoriness.
What, then, is this but the admiration, at last confessed by the world,
for childhood? Time was when childhood was but borne with, and that for
the sake of its mere promise of manhood.
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