CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL


CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S
INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.


No. 419. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, 1852. PRICE 1-1/2 _d_.




THE LOST AGES.


My friends, have you read Elia? If so, follow me, walking in the
shadow of his mild presence, while I recount to you my vision of the
Lost Ages. I am neither single nor unblessed with offspring, yet,
like Charles Lamb, I have had my 'dream-children.' Years have flown
over me since I stood a bride at the altar. My eyes are dim and
failing, and my hairs are silver-white. My real children of flesh
and blood have become substantial men and women, carving their own
fortunes, and catering for their own tastes in the matter of wives
and husbands, leaving their old mother, as nature ordereth, to the
stillness and repose fitted for her years. Understand, this is not
meant to imply that the fosterer of their babyhood, the instructor
of their childhood, the guide of their youth, is forsaken or
neglected by those who have sprung up to maturity beneath her eye.
No; I am blessed in my children. Living apart, I yet see them often;
their joys, their cares are mine. Not a Sabbath dawns but it finds