4 THE NEWBORN YEAR. 



Ants, of buried Beetles, and a forlorn few of widowed Wasps, 

 stupified by grief or cold, sole relics of their perished race ; 

 but what a drowsy doleful prelude would this be to the cheerful 

 airs we would draw from the harp of nature. These insect 

 sleepers would furnish us with themes of life in death, for in 

 all of them, under forms of death, forms of vitality, arrested or 

 unexpanded, lie hidden ; as in all real deaths, merely natural, 

 are contained the germs of life. Even this departing year does 

 not wholly die, since being full fraught with causes (seeds 

 which are sure to ripen into the fruit of consequences), in these 

 it will continue to live to the end of time, aye, even to eternity ; 

 but believe, and philosophize, and hope as we may, neither 

 death nor death's semblances are the most enlivening objects 

 of contemplation. At all events, we felt our spirits growing 

 flat and our thoughts confused, as we looked at our waning 

 candle (like the year, approaching to its end), and reviewed 

 the subjects, defunct or drowsy, from amongst which we must, 

 perforce, choose one for that of our opening essay. Dreaminess 

 trod on the heels of dullness, and before we had come to a 

 decision as to what sleeping insect should constitute our 

 commencing theme, we were ourselves nodding beside our 

 solitary fire. 



Suddenly we were awoke by a clang of bells from the 

 neighbouring steeple of our parish-church, the requiem of the 

 departed, and salutation to the new-born year. It was soon 

 pealed out, and we were left once more to the silence of our 

 little parlour, a silence which seemed deepei than usual, and 

 more solemn, yet not to the spirit's ear unbroken ; for it is in 

 pauses such as these on life's rattling road, that the " still 

 small voice" is always audible, unless it be drowned, as is common, 

 by the noise of social mirth. We sank into a reverie, regretful 

 more than hopeful, of retrospect rather than of prospect, and in 

 the current of mingled thoughts that rushed over it, our lately 

 ruling and uppermost idea (that of our contemplated book) 

 was completely overwhelmed. Of a sudden, however, it was 



