"Nelly, your sweet sister, is sitting by me. 'Tell Clarence,' she says,
'to come home soon.' You know, my son, what hearty welcome will greet
you; and that, whether here or away, our love and prayers will be with
you always; and may God in his infinite mercy keep you from all harm!"
A tear or two--brushed away as soon as they come--is all that youth
gives to embalm such treasure of love! A gay laugh, or the challenge of
some companion of a day, will sweep away into the night the earnest,
regretful, yet happy dreams that rise like incense from the pages of
such hallowed affection.
The brusque world too is to be met, with all its hurry and promptitude.
Manhood, in our swift American world, is measured too much by
forgetfulness of all the sweet bonds which tie the heart to the home of
its first attachments. We deaden the glow that nature has kindled, lest
it may lighten our hearts into an enchanting flame of weakness. We have
not learned to make that flame the beacon of our purposes and the warmer
of our strength. We are men too early.
But an experience is approaching Clarence, that will drive his heart
home for shelter, like a wounded bird!
----It is an autumn morning, with such crimson glories to kindle it as
lie along the twin ranges of mountain that guard the Hudson.
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