to-day. By and by the stony foot of the great University will plant
itself on this whole territory, and the private recollections which clung
so tenaciously and fondly to the place and its habitations will have died
with those who cherished them.

Shall they ever live again in the memory of those who loved them here
below? What is this life without the poor accidents which made it our
own, and by which we identify ourselves? Ah me! I might like to be a
winged chorister, but still it seems to me I should hardly be quite happy
if I could not recall at will the Old House with the Long Entry, and the
White Chamber (where I wrote the first verses that made me known, with a
pencil, stans pede in uno, pretty, nearly), and the Little Parlor, and
the Study, and the old books in uniforms as varied as those of the
Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company used to be, if my memory serves
me right, and the front yard with the Star-of-Bethlehems growing,
flowerless, among the grass, and the dear faces to be seen no more there
or anywhere on this earthly place of farewells.

I have told my story. I do not know what special gifts have been granted
or denied me; but this I know, that I am like so many others of my
fellow-creatures, that when I smile, I feel as if they must; when I cry,
I think their eyes fill; and it always seems to me that when I am most
truly myself I come nearest to them and am surest of being listened to by
the brothers and sisters of the larger family into which I was born so
long ago. I have often feared they might be tired of me and what I tell
them. But then, perhaps, would come a letter from some quiet body in
some out-of-the-way place, which showed me that I had said something
which another had often felt but never said, or told the secret of
another's heart in unburdening my own. Such evidences that one is in the
highway of human experience and feeling lighten the footsteps