MYSTERIES OF MEMOHY. 5 



comfort, and while the wind whistles without, and the rain 

 rattles fiercely against the casement, there is to the solitary man 

 a kind of dreamy delight in resigning himself to his fauteuil 

 and his cigar, and as he bends an abstracted eye upon the 

 cheering blaze, calling up the scenes that are no more. On such 

 occasions Memory and Imagination rove arm-in-arm, and the 

 paths of reality are often beautifully varied with the blossoms 

 of fancy. With the old, the past has a power over the mind 

 never possessed by the present moment ; as an elder brother, it 

 lays claim to the superiority of inheritance ; " its joys were more 

 elastic and its sorrows more poignant ; its smiles were brighter 

 and more beguiling, and its friendships and affections stronger 

 and more engaging." In fact, its whole materiel, physical and 

 moral, is weighed heavily against that of the time being. "The 

 world is not what it was in rmj time !" sighs out the silver-haired 

 Octogenarian, folding his hands with an air of tender regret — 

 " * Bel et brave was then the motto of the day ; Man was chivalrous 

 and Woman was divine ! But, alas ! our religion, our politics, 

 our government, our laws, our commerce, our institutions, our 

 manners and customs — even the very beauty, and grace, and 

 intellect, and sociability of our land, are fast degenerating into 

 their extremes. Well, well, 



* All that's bright must fade !' " 



and with this suspiciously modern quotation upon his lips, the 

 venerable gentleman draws his head, tortoise-like, into the folds 

 of his robe-de-chambre, and yields himself up to a slumber, in 

 which the wit, the gallantry, the valour, the high breeding, the 

 gaiety, the birth, the loveliness, the vivacity, the enchantments of 

 the departed century rise in a brilliant galaxy before him. The 

 grave gives up the dead, and pulseless age issues from the 

 cauldron, glowing with the exquisite attractions of youth. Eyes 

 that have long shone but on the canvas or the cherished ivory 

 of the painter, by a mysterious resuscitation, beam and melt, 

 and sparkle into life ; and lips, whose bloom is but a memory y 

 again deepen into ruby, and clothe themselves in the glorious 

 witchery of smiles. And sweeter than the breeze stealing over 

 the harp of ^olus, mellow and lute-like voices salute the ear of 

 the dreamer. Lost in a revelation of ecstacy, he utters a suit- 

 able apostrophe, and wakens to find that his Trujitt has fallen 

 upon the floor, and that his spectacles have, modestly, elected 

 themselves to a sinecure upon his chin. The spell is de- 

 stroyed ; Time snatches up his crutch, his scythe, and his 

 horologe, and the flattering delusion resolves into the realities of 

 fovT'Score, 



It is the lustre with which the affections love to envelope all 

 that they preserve, which gives to the past a charm so indescriba- 



