AN OLD MAN'S RECOLLECTIONS.





"I AM not a _very_ old man," said a venerable friend to me, one day,
"yet my head has become whitened and my cheeks furrowed:--and often,
as I pause and lean upon my staff, at the corners of the streets,
the present reality gives place to dreams of the past, and I see
here, instead of the massive pile of brick and marble, the low frame
dwelling, and there, in place of the lines of tall warehouses,
humble tenements. If, in my aimless wanderings about the city, I
turn my steps towards the suburbs, I find that change, too, has been
there. I miss the woods and fields where once, with the gay
companions of early years, I spent many a summer hour. Beautiful
dwellings have sprung up, it seems to me as if by magic, where but
yesterday I plucked fruit from overladen branches, or flung myself
to rest among the tall grass or ripening grain.

"But other changes than this have marked the passage of time.
Changes that cause them to sink into obscurity in comparison.
Thousands in our goodly city have passed from the cradle to the
grave, during the years that have been allotted to me; and thousands