In the agitated meanwhile I had begun to try my young wings. I felt
myself growing inwardly and outwardly; something was stirring my heart
with unusual palpitations. I was beginning to realize that life after
all did not mean what daily passed within the narrow arena of my home;
something whispered to me that outside those paltry limits, far away
over all the spires and chimney-tops, where the sky was so bright and
blue, life, real life, unfolded itself under many a varied aspect, and
with this suspicion, sprung up a lingering dissatisfaction, a longing
for something which no words of mine could define.
How clearly does this epoch of my life stand forth from the dreary
background of experience as I look at it from the watch-tower of
to-day? How I know now that this was the farewell passage of my
childhood, which was winging its flight, and leaving me to struggle
with the naked realities of life, which had hitherto been hidden and
undreamt of mysteries to me.
Ah! that passage of childhood, what a void it makes in the growing
heart; and how quietly its place is filled by unworthier influences.
Does all the abstract wealth, which there might be in the growth and
development of those who learn the alphabet of life upon our knee,
take one pang from the natural and pardonable sorrow with which we
watch the heavy footprint of an inevitable experience, crushing out
the last frail remnant of childhood from the hearts of those who such
a little while before were our "little ones?"
There is something far more appealing to the parent's heart in the
half worn stocking of the child who toddled from its cradle to its
grave, than in the mighty quill of her grey-haired poet son, rusted
though it be in the service of his art.
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