CHAPTER I.

The Idle Apprentice.


Twelve years! How many events have occurred during that long interval!
how many changes have taken place! The whole aspect of things is
altered. The child has sprung into a youth; the youth has become a man;
the man has already begun to feel the advances of age. Beauty has
bloomed and faded. Fresh flowers of loveliness have budded, expanded,
died. The fashions of the day have become antiquated. New customs have
prevailed over the old. Parties, politics, and popular opinions have
changed. The crown has passed from the brow of one monarch to that of
another. Habits and tastes are no longer the same. We, ourselves, are
scarcely the same we were twelve years ago.

Twelve years ago! It is an awful retrospect. Dare we look back upon the
darkened vista, and, in imagination retrace the path we have trod? With
how many vain hopes is it shaded! with how many good resolutions, never
fulfilled, is it paved! Where are the dreams of ambition in which,
twelve years ago, we indulged? Where are the aspirations that fired
us--the passions that consumed us then? Has our success in life been
commensurate with our own desires--with the anticipations formed of us
by others? Or, are we not blighted in heart, as in ambition? Has not the
loved one been estranged by doubt, or snatched from us by the cold hand
of death? Is not the goal, towards which we pressed, further off than
ever--the prospect before us cheerless as the blank behind?--Enough of
this. Let us proceed with our tale.