University of Virginia Library

8. VIII.

Down the thinly-wooded hills, west of the great city, reached
the long shadows of the sunset. The streets were crowded
with mechanics seeking their firesides—in one hand the little

tin pail in which dinner had been carried, and in the other a
toy for the baby, perhaps, or a pound of tea or of meat for the
good wife.

The smoke curled upward from the chimneys of the suburban
districts, and little rustic girls and boys were seen in all directions,
hurrying homeward with their arms full of shavings; old
women, too, with their bags of rags, betook themselves somewhere—Heaven
only knows whether they had any homes, or
where they went—but at any rate, with backs bending under
their awful burdens, they turned into lanes and alleys, and disappeared;
the tired dray-horses walked faster and nimbler as
they smelled the oats in the manger; and here and there, in the
less frequented streets, bands of school-boys and girls drove
their hoops, or linked their arms and skipped joyously up and
down the pavement; while now and then a pair of older children
strolled, in happiness, for that they dreamed of still more
blessed times to come. The reflections of beautiful things in the
future, make the present bright, and it is well for us, since the
splendor fades from our approach, and it is only in reveries of
hope that we find ourselves in rest, or crowned with beauty.

We have need to thank thee, oh our Father, that thou hast
given us the power of seeing visions and dreaming dreams!
Earth, with all the glory of its grass and all the splendor of its
flowers, were dreary and barren and desolate, but for that
divine insanity which shapes deformity into grace, and darkness
into light. How the low roof is lifted up on the airy
pillars of thought, and the close dark walls expanded and made
enchanting with the pictures of the imagination! And best of
all, by this blessed power the cheeks that are colorless, and the
foreheads that are wrinkled by time, retain in our eyes the
freshness and the smoothness of primal years; to us they cannot
grow old, for we see

Life's sharp realities press us sore, sometimes, and but for the
unsubstantial bases on which we build some new anticipations,
we should often rush headlong to the dark.