"How beautiful!" exclaimed the elder of our travellers--"could
anything be more so! How pure, how peaceful! See, Warham, how
soft, how spirit-like, that light lies along the hill-side, and
how distinct, yet how delicate, is the train which glides from it
down the valley, even to the white dwellings at its bottom, from which
it seems to shrink and tremble as if half conscious of intrusion.
And yet the picture below is kindred with it. That, now, is a scene
that I delight in--it is a constant picture in my mind. There is
peace in that valley, if there be peace anywhere on earth. The old
men sit before the door, and contemplate with mingled feelings of
pride and pleasure, the vigorous growth of their children. They
behold in them their own immortality, even upon earth. The young
will preserve their memories, and transmit their names to other
children yet unborn; and how must such a reflection reconcile them
to their own time of departure, not unfitly shown in the last smiles
of that sunlight, which they are so soon about to lose. Like him,
they look with benevolence and love upon the world from which they
will soon depart."

"Take my word for it, uncle, they will postpone their departure
to the last possible moment, and, so far from looking with smiles
upon what they are about to leave for ever, they will leave it with
very great reluctance, and in monstrous bad humor. As for regarding
their children with any such notions as those you dwell upon with
such poetical raptures, they will infinitely prefer transmitting
for themselves their names and qualities to the very end of the
chapter. Ask any one of them the question now, and he will tell you
that an immortality, each, in his own wig-wam, and with his weight
of years and infirmity upon him, would satisfy all his expectations.