those I had lately seen were vividly before me; but how, and for what
purpose I knew not. Something in their kindness and attention had left
an agreeable impression upon my mind, and without being able, or even
attempting to trace it, I felt happy in the thought. While thus the
"hour before" was dim and indistinct, the events of years past were
vividly and brightly pictured before me; and strange, too, the more
remote the period, the more did it seem palpable and present to my
imagination. For so it is, there is in memory a species of mental
long-sightedness, which, though blind to the object close beside you, can
reach the blue mountains and the starry skies, which lie full many a
league away. Is this a malady? or is it rather a providential gift to
alleviate the tedious hours of the sick bed, and cheer the lonely
sufferer, whose thoughts are his only realm?

My school-boy days, in all their holiday excitement; the bank where I had
culled the earliest cowslips of the year; the clear but rapid stream,
where days long I have watched the speckled trout, as they swam
peacefully beneath, or shook their bright fins in the gay sunshine; the
gorgeous dragon-fly that played above the water, and dipped his bright
wings in its ripple--they were all before me. And then came the thought
of school itself, with its little world of boyish cares and emulations;
the early imbibed passion for success; the ardent longing for
superiority; the high and swelling feeling of the heart, as home drew
near, to think that I had gained the wished for prize--the object of many
an hour's toil--the thought of many a long night's dream; my father's
smile; my mother's kiss! Oh! what a very world of tender memory that one
thought suggests; for what are all our later successes in life--how
bright soever our fortune be--compared with the early triumphs of our
infancy? Where, among the jealous rivalry of some, the cold and
half-wrung praise of others, the selfish and unsympathising regard of all,