and wound their feelings, pass by them like the idle wind which they regard not.  He himself must have had his intervals of comparative happiness, in which the causes of his present grief would have appeared trivial and absurd.  He should not, then, expect persons whose blood is warm in their veins, and whose eyes are open to the blessed sun in heaven, to think more of the apparent causes of his sorrow than he would himself, were his mind and body in a healthful state.

With what a light heart and eager appetite did I enter the little breakfast parlour of which the glass-doors opened upon a bright green lawn, variegated with small beds of flowers!  The table was spread with dewy and delicious fruits from our own garden, and gathered by fair and friendly hands.  Beautiful and luscious as were these garden dainties, they were of small account in comparison with the fresh cheeks and cherry lips that so frankly accepted the wonted early greeting.  Alas! how that circle of early friends is now divided, and what a change has since come over the spirit of our dreams!  Yet still I cherish boyish feelings, and the past is sometimes present.  As I give an imaginary kiss to an “old familiar face,” and catch myself almost unconsciously, yet literally, returning imaginary smiles, my heart is as fresh and fervid as of yore.

A lapse of fifteen years, and a distance of fifteen thousand miles, and the glare of a tropical sky and the presence of foreign faces, need not make an Indian Exile quite forgetful of home-delights.  Parted friends may still share the light of love as severed clouds are equally kindled by the same sun.  No number of miles or days can change or separate faithful spirits or annihilate early associations.  That strange magician, Fancy, who supplies so many corporeal deficiencies and overcomes so many physical obstructions, and mocks at space and time, enables us to pass in the twinkling of an eye over the dreary waste of waters that separates the exile from the scenes and companions of his youth.  He treads again his native shore.  He sits by the hospitable hearth and listens to the ringing laugh of children.  He exchanges cordial greetings with the “old familiar faces.”  There is a resurrection of the dead, and a return of vanished years.  He abandons himself to the sweet illusion, and again

    Lives over each scene, and is what he beholds.

I must not be too egotistically garrulous in print, or I would now attempt to describe the various ways in which I have spent a summer’s day in England.  I would dilate upon my noon-day loiterings amidst wild ruins, and thick forests, and on the shaded banks of rivers—­the pic-nic parties—­the gipsy prophecies—­the twilight homeward walk—­the social tea-drinking, and, the last scene of all, the “rosy dreams and slumbers light,” induced by wholesome exercise and placid thoughts.[050] But perhaps these few simple allusions are sufficient to awaken a train of kindred associations in the reader’s mind, and he will thank me for those words and images that are like the keys of memory, and “open all her cells with easy force.”