I recollect looking more
grave and steady when I met its dusty face, as if, having that
strange kind of life within it, and being free from all excess of
vulgar appetite, and warning all the house by night and day, it
were a sage. How often have I listened to it as it told the beads
of time, and wondered at its constancy! How often watched it
slowly pointing round the dial, and, while I panted for the eagerly
expected hour to come, admired, despite myself, its steadiness of
purpose and lofty freedom from all human strife, impatience, and
desire!
I thought it cruel once. It was very hard of heart, to my mind, I
remember. It was an old servant even then; and I felt as though it
ought to show some sorrow; as though it wanted sympathy with us in
our distress, and were a dull, heartless, mercenary creature. Ah!
how soon I learnt to know that in its ceaseless going on, and in
its being checked or stayed by nothing, lay its greatest kindness,
and the only balm for grief and wounded peace of mind.
To-night, to-night, when this tranquillity and calm are on my
spirits, and memory presents so many shifting scenes before me, I
take my quiet stand at will by many a fire that has been long
extinguished, and mingle with the cheerful group that cluster round
it. If I could be sorrowful in such a mood, I should grow sad to
think what a poor blot I was upon their youth and beauty once, and
now how few remain to put me to the blush; I should grow sad to
think that such among them as I sometimes meet with in my daily
walks are scarcely less infirm than I; that time has brought us to
a level; and that all distinctions fade and vanish as we take our
trembling steps towards the grave.
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