08 TH^ DOCTOR. 



which fell unresisted by our weakness, bound together by memory, 

 the nurse of all that is dear to the heart. 



From our first impressions springs the poetry of our natures, 

 when in hardened manhood we look back upon the softened dream 

 of infancy and its thousand prattles, of home, and all of home, of 

 love, and light, and joy — every fluttering feeling, every fond associa- 

 tion, full of mother's love, possessing us with those delicious sensi- 

 bilities which arise from the heart, like the dew-drops exhaling into 

 fragrance. 



Mother ! — O ! there is such a fullness of love in that word, a 

 thousand, thousand fond looks fall on one, a thousand kisses warm, 

 a thousand fond exj)ressions sound again. Father, sister, wife, are 

 void of that utter giving up of self which speaks in mother. We 

 think of her who through infancy preserved us, througli boyhood 

 delighted us, through life loved us — who watched every breath, 

 and by her scarce articulate prayer and heaven-turned eye, beaming 

 with its own goodness, taught us all of God — that he is love; "first 

 impressions" that in after years appear shining in the unclosed 

 sanctuary of the heart. 'Tis thus to be a boy again. The past 

 forms the poetry of the future ; we foretell the events of unborn 

 hours by the recognitions of olden times, we behold in the expan- 

 sion of present delights, the golden fruition of young desires. Our 

 fears, our hopes spring from those of childhood — our prejudices, our 

 passions, had their germ in infancy. 



" The past is poetry ! The deeds, the days. 

 The feelings, thoughts, and phantasies of old 

 Sown thickly o'er the memory, spring up 

 As od'rous flowers to frame a wreath of song." 



The terrors of darkness and the realm of ancient night, peopled 

 with shades, arise from the incomprehensible fears of childhood na- 

 turally connecting danger with dependence. For the same reason 

 does the reverence which mankind insensibly render to authorities 

 and powers owe its existence to the first impressions in the infant 

 mind, when, like the savage, we behold authority in its display, 

 and shrink less from the man than from the dazzling splendour 

 which surrounds him. The king's crown, the lawyer's robe, the 

 priest's cassock, the doctor's sables and gold-headed cane, seem con- 

 substantiated with their being. 



Our first impressions seem to be sometimes hereditary, handed 

 down from father to father as one of the incorporated elements of the 

 body. When began the dread with which the name, the person, of 



