The period of my absence, I believe, was about fifteen years, during which space I heard no account of him whatsoever.  At length, however, that inextinguishable attachment which turns the affections and memory to the friends of our early days—­to those scenes which we traversed when the heart was light and the spirits buoyant—­determined me to make a visit to my native place, that I might witness the progress of time and care upon those faces that were once so familiar to me; that I might again look upon the meadows, and valleys, and groves, and mountains, where I had so often played, and to which I still found myself bound by a tie that a more enlightened view of life and nature only made stronger and more enduring.  I accordingly set off, and arrived late in the evening of a December day, at a little town within a few miles of my native home.  On alighting from the coach and dining, I determined to walk home, as it was a fine frosty night.  The full moon hung in the blue unclouded firmament in all her lustre, and the stars shone out with that tremulous twinkling motion so peculiarly remarkable in frost.  I had been absent, I said, about fifteen years, and felt that the enjoyment of this night would form an era in the records of my memory and my feelings.  I find myself indeed utterly incapable of expressing what I experienced; but those who have ever been in similar circumstances will understand what I mean.  A strong spirit of practical poetry and romance was upon me; and I thought that a commonplace approach in the open day would have rendered my return to the scenes of my early life a very stale and unedifying matter.  I left the inn at seven o’clock, and as I had only five miles to walk, I would just arrive about nine, allowing myself to saunter on at the rate of two miles and half per hour.  My sensations, indeed, as I went along, were singular; and as I took a solitary road that went across the mountains, the loneliness of the walk, the deep gloom of the valleys, the towering height of the dark hills, and the pale silvery-light of a sleeping lake, shining dimly in the distance below, gave me such a distinct notion of the sublime and beautiful, as I have seldom since experienced.  I recommend every man who has been fifteen years absent from his native fields to return by moonlight.

Well, there is a mystery yet undiscovered in our being, for no man can know the full extent of his feelings or his capacities.  Many a slumbering thought, and sentiment, and association reposes within him, of which he is utterly ignorant, and which, except he come in contact with those objects whose influence over his mind can alone call them into being, may never be awakened, or give him one moment of either pleasure or pain.  There is, therefore, a great deal in the position which we hold in society, and simply in situation.  I felt this on that night:  for the tenor of my reflections was new and original, and my feelings had a warmth and freshness in them,