looked out at her eyes with such a reality of
re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood
there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I
stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my
view, receding, and still receding till nothing at last but
two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance,
which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the
effects of speech: "We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor
are we children at all. The children of Alice call Bartrum
father. We are nothing, less than nothing, and dreams. We
are only what might have been, and must wait upon the
tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have
existence, and a name"--and immediately awaking, I found
myself quietly seated in my bachelor arm-chair, where I had
fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget unchanged by my
side--but John L. (or James Elia) was gone for ever.

This little essay, the most beautiful of the series, is as essentially
pathetic as anything in our literature, bringing tears to the eyes at
every reading though known almost by heart.

The essay on "Distant Correspondents," in the form of a playful
epistle to a friend, B. F. (_i.e._, Barron Field, also a contributor
to the "London Magazine") has much that is characteristic of the
writer. In it he plays--as he does in other letters to distant
friends--on the way in which "this confusion of tenses, this grand
solecism of two presents" renders writing difficult; in it he airs his
fondness for a pun and enlarges upon the fugacity of that form of fun,
its inherent incapacity for travel; and in it, too, he gives some
indication--we have several such indications in his letters--of his