University of Virginia Library

THE PAST.

We do not suffer our minds to dwell sufficiently on the past.
Though now and then there is one who thinks it wise to talk
with the hours that are gone, and ask them what report they
bore to Heaven, this sort of communion is for the most part
imposed as a duty and not felt to be a delight.

The sun sets, and our thoughts bathe themselves in the freshness
of the morning that is to come, and fancy busies herself
in shaping some great or good thing that is waiting just beyond
the night; and though, time after time, we discover that Fancy
is a cheat and lies away our hearts into unsubstantial realms,
we trust her anew without question or hesitancy; and so the
last sun sets, too often, ere we look back and seriously consider
our ways.

I have met with some writer, I think Hazlitt, in his “Table
Talk,” with whom my estimate of the past harmonizes perfectly:
“Am I mocked with a lie when I venture to think of it?” he
asks, “or do I not drink in and breathe again the air of heavenly
truth, when I but retrace its footsteps, and its skirts far off

adore?” And, in continuation, he says, “It is the past that
gives me most delight, and most assurance of reality.” For
him the great charm of the Confessions, of Rousseau, is their
turning so much on this feeling—his gathering up the departed
moments of his being, like drops of honey-dew, to distil a precious
liquor from them—his making of alternate pleasures and
pains the bead-roll that he tells over and piously worships;
and he ends by inquiring, “Was all that had happened to him,
all that he had thought and felt, to be accounted nothing? Was
that long and faded retrospect of years, happy or miserable, a
blank that was to make his eyes fail and his heart faint within
him in trying to grasp all that had once vanished, because it was
not a prospect into futurity?”

Yesterday has been, and is, a bright or dark layer in the time
that makes up the ages; we are certain of it, with its joys or
sorrows; to-morrow we may never see, or if we do, how shall
it be better than the days that are gone—the times when our
feet were stronger for the race, and our hearts fuller of hope—
when, perchance, our “eyes looked love to eyes that spake
again, and all went merry?” Why should we look forward so
eagerly, where the way grows more dusty and weary all the
time, and is never smooth till it strikes across the level floor
of the grave, when, a little way back, we may gather handsful
of fresh flowers? Whatever evils are about us, is it not
very comforting to have been blessed, and to sit alone with our
hearts and woo back the visions of departed joys? And who
of us all has had so barren and isolate a life that it is gladdened
by no times and seasons which it pleases us to think eternity
cannot make dim nor quite sweep into forgetfulness?

For myself, when I move in the twilight or the hearthlight,
thought, in spite of the interest that attaches to uncertainty,
travels oftener to the days that have been, than to those that
are to come. With the dear playmate who has been asleep so
many years, I am walking again, pulling from the decayed logs
mosses that make for us brighter carpets than the most ingenious
looms of men may weave; I am treading on the May
grass and breathing its fragrance anew; I am glad because of a
bird's nest in the bush, and feel a tearful joyousness when the

cedar pail brims up with warm milk, or the breath of the heifer,
sweet as the airs that come creeping over the clover field, is
close upon my cheek while I pat her sleek neck, praising her
bounty. Then there are such bright plans to plan over! what
though so many of them have failed? they had not failed then,
but seemed very good and beautiful, and it is as easy to go
down to the bases of our dreams, as to think of their tottering
and falling. True, as I am putting flowers among the locks
over which the dust lies now, I must needs sometimes think of
the dust, but that I can cover with flowers also, and feel that
there is no moaning in the sleep which is beneath them. There
is another too, not a playmate, for whom, as the evening star
climbs over the western tree-tops, I watch, joyfully, for hope
has as yet never been chilled by disappointment. And sure
enough, the red twilight has not burned itself out, nor the
insects ceased to make their ado, before the music of the familiar
footstep sounds along the hush of a close-listening, and

Blow on, oh, wild wind, and stir the woods that are divided
from me now by distance and by time, for in your murmurs
there is a voice that makes my heart young again; clouds of
the April, travel softly and rain sweetly till the meadows are
speckled with lilies, and the swollen streams flow over their
banks, for I seem to see on the sprouting grass the sheets of
the bridal bed bleaching white. Death came first to the marriage
feast, and she whose hopes I made mine and with whose
eyes I watched, is wrapt daintily in the shroud of snow.

And yet, not alone for its beauty, not even for its solemn
eloquence, do I look and listen to the past. It makes me feel
life's reality; it makes me know its responsibility, and put
down the hasty word that might rankle deeply and long, and
hold undropt the pebble that might stir the whole sea of life; it
makes me reverent of others, and distrustful of myself. I remember
silences where kind words might have been, and what is
worse, impetuous and inconsiderate behavior for which I cannot
be penitent enough. But aside from its rebuking spirit—
outside of any good or evil that is in it—the past is loved by me,
and my pleasantest pastime is to take up the threads of the lives

that have crossed mine and weave their histories anew, mingling
in the light and shadow of destiny till I lose them in the distance,
or find them sinking in the valley where there is “rest
to the labor and peace to the pain.”