acquire another sort of value with the lapse of time. They scatter their
leaves to the wind, as the sibyl did, and posterity collects them, to be
treasured up among the best materials of its wisdom. With hasty pens
they write for immortality.

It is pleasant to take one of these little dingy halfsheets between the
thumb and finger, and picture forth the personage who, above ninety years
ago, held it, wet from the press, and steaming, before the fire. Many of
the numbers bear the name of an old colonial dignitary. There he sits, a
major, a member of the council, and a weighty merchant, in his high-
backed arm-chair, wearing a solemn wig and grave attire, such as befits
his imposing gravity of mien, and displaying but little finery, except a
huge pair of silver shoe-buckles, curiously carved. Observe the awful
reverence of his visage, as he reads his Majesty's most gracious speech;
and the deliberate wisdom with which he ponders over some paragraph of
provincial politics, and the keener intelligence with which he glances at
the ship-news and commercial advertisements. Observe, and smile! He may
have been a wise man in his day; but, to us, the wisdom of the politician
appears like folly, because we can compare its prognostics with actual
results; and the old merchant seems to have busied himself about
vanities, because we know that the expected ships have been lost at sea,
or mouldered at the wharves; that his imported broadcloths were long ago
worn to tatters, and his cargoes of wine quaffed to the lees; and that
the most precious leaves of his ledger have become waste-paper. Yet, his
avocations were not so vain as our philosophic moralizing. In this world
we are the things of a moment, and are made to pursue momentary things,
with here and there a thought that stretches mistily towards eternity,
and perhaps may endure as long. All philosophy that would abstract
mankind from the present is no more than words.