change our last simile to that very old and familiar one of a fleet leaving the harbor and sailing in company for some distant region, we can get what we want out of it.  There is one of our companions;—­her streamers were torn into rags before she had got into the open sea, then by and by her sails blew out of the ropes one after another, the waves swept her deck, and as night came on we left her a seeming wreck, as we flew under our pyramid of canvas.  But lo! at dawn she is still in sight,—­it may be in advance of us.  Some deep ocean-current has been moving her on, strong, but silent,—­yes, stronger than these noisy winds that puff our sails until they are swollen as the cheeks of jubilant cherubim.  And when at last the black steam-tug with the skeleton arms, that comes out of the mist sooner or later and takes us all in tow, grapples her and goes off panting and groaning with her, it is to that harbor where all wrecks are refitted, and where, alas! we, towering in our pride, may never come.

So you will not think I mean to speak lightly of old friendships, because we cannot help instituting comparisons between our present and former selves by the aid of those who were what we were, but are not what we are.  Nothing strikes one more, in the race of life, than to see how many give out in the first half of the course.  “Commencement day” always reminds me of the start for the “Derby,” when the beautiful high-bred three-year olds of the season are brought up for trial.  That day is the start, and life is the race.  Here we are at Cambridge, and a class is just “graduating.”  Poor Harry! he was to have been there too, but he has paid forfeit; step out here into the grass back of the church; ah! there it is:—­

“HUNC LAPIDEM POSUERUNT SOCII MOERENTES.”

But this is the start, and here they are,—­coats bright as silk, and manes as smooth as eau lustrale can make them.  Some of the best of the colts are pranced round, a few minutes each, to show their paces.  What is that old gentleman crying about? and the old lady by him, and the three girls, all covering their eyes for?  Oh, that is their colt that has just been trotted up on the stage.  Do they really think those little thin legs can do anything in such a slashing sweepstakes as is coming off in these next forty years?  Oh, this terrible gift of second-sight that comes to some of us when we begin to look through the silvered rings of the arcus senilis!

Ten years gone.  First turn in the race.  A few broken down; two or three bolted.  Several show in advance of the ruck. Cassock, a black colt, seems to be ahead of the rest; those black colts commonly get the start, I have noticed, of the others, in the first quarter. Meteor has pulled up.

Twenty years.  Second corner turned. Cassock has dropped from the front, and Judex, an iron-gray, has the lead.  But look! how they have thinned out!  Down flat,—­five,—­six,—­how many?  They lie still enough! they will not get up again in this race, be very sure!  And the rest of them, what a “tailing off”!  Anybody can see who is going to win,—­perhaps.