difference between their sources of happiness and those which supply
the kittens in their play. "Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a
straw," they skip from pleasure to pleasure, and find delight in the
impulsive exercise of their little powers. We were once like them.
Life was once as fresh, and flowing, and impulsive, and objectless,
as it is with them; and when we are weary and oppressed with labor,
and loaded down with responsibility, and filled with thoughts of the
great destiny before us, we turn our eyes backward with a sigh for
days once ours, but lost forever. Lost forever! This is the romantic
pain that fills us in all our contemplations of simple animal
content. It is lost to us, because we are lost to it. Like a
passenger far out upon the sea, adventuring upon a long voyage, we
look back upon the fading hills of our native land, and sigh to
think that the breeze which bears us away can never bring us back.

The question comes to us: "What is there in our present life to
repay us for this loss?" There are multitudes who can ask this
question, and answer honestly, "Nothing." It is sad, but true,
that countless men and women have never found any thing in life
which compensates them for the loss of the simple animal enjoyment
and content of childhood. Sickness, perhaps, has imposed upon them
years of pain. Poverty has condemned them to labor through every
waking hour to win sustenance for themselves and their dependents.
The heart has been cheated of its idol. Friends have proved false,
and fortune fickle. Life has gone wrong through all the avenues of
their being. Yet there are others who, while looking with pleasure
upon the innocent sports of animal life, and recalling the simple
joys of childhood with delight, are content with the lot of
manhood and womanhood, and would look upon a return to their
simpler age as the greatest calamity that could be inflicted upon