"I remember, I remember,In the days of chill November,How the blackbird on the--"I forget the rest. It is the beginning of the first piece of poetry Iever learned; for"Hey, diddle diddle,The cat and the fiddle,"I take no note of, it being of a frivolous character and lacking inthe qualities of true poetry. I collected fourpence by the recital of"I remember, I remember." I knew it was fourpence, because they toldme that if I kept it until I got twopence more I should have sixpence,which argument, albeit undeniable, moved me not, and the money wassquandered, to the best of my recollection, on the very next morning,although upon what memory is a blank.

That is just the way with Memory; nothing that she brings to us iscomplete. She is a willful child; all her toys are broken. Iremember tumbling into a huge dust-hole when a very small boy, but Ihave not the faintest recollection of ever getting out again; and ifmemory were all we had to trust to, I should be compelled to believe Iwas there still.

At another time--some years later--I was assisting at an exceedinglyinteresting love scene; but the only thing about it I can call to minddistinctly is that at the most critical moment somebody suddenlyopened the door and said, "Emily, you're wanted," in a sepulchral tonethat gave one the idea the police had come for her. All the tenderwords she said to me and all the beautiful things I said to her areutterly forgotten.

Life altogether is but a crumbling ruin when we turn to look behind:

a shattered column here, where a massive portal stood; the brokenshaft of a window to mark my lady's bower; and a moldering heap ofblackened stones where the glowing flames once leaped, and over allthe tinted lichen and the ivy clinging green.

For everything looms pleasant through the softening haze of time.

Even the sadness that is past seems sweet. Our boyish days look verymerry to us now, all nutting, hoop, and gingerbread. The snubbingsand toothaches and the Latin verbs are all forgotten--the Latin verbsespecially. And we fancy we were very happy when we were hobbledehoysand loved; and we wish that we could love again. We never think ofthe heartaches, or the sleepless nights, or the hot dryness of ourthroats, when she said she could never be anything to us but asister--as if any man wanted more sisters!

Yes, it is the brightness, not the darkness, that we see when we lookback. The sunshine casts no shadows on the past. The road that wehave traversed stretches very fair behind us. We see not the sharpstones. We dwell but on the roses by the wayside, and the strongbriers that stung us are, to our distant eyes, but gentle tendrilswaving in the wind. God be thanked that it is so--that theever-lengthening chain of memory has only pleasant links, and that thebitterness and sorrow of to-day are smiled at on the morrow.

It seems as though the brightest side of everything were also itshighest and best, so that as our little lives sink back behind us intothe dark sea of forgetfulness, all that which is the lightest and themost gladsome is the last to sink, and stands above the waters, longin sight, when the angry thoughts and smarting pain are buried deepbelow the waves and trouble us no more.

It is this glamour of the past, I suppose, that makes old folk talk somuch nonsense about the days when they were young. The world appearsto have been a very superior sort of place then, and things were morelike what they ought to be. Boys were boys then, and girls were verydifferent. Also winters were something like winters, and summers notat all the wretched-things we get put off with nowadays. As for thewonderful deeds people did in those times and the extraordinary eventsthat happened, it takes three strong men to believe half of them.

I like to hear one of the old boys telling all about it to a party ofyoungsters who he knows cannot contradict him. It is odd if, afterawhile, he doesn't swear that the moon shone every night when he was aboy, and that tossing mad bulls in a blanket was the favorite sport athis school.

It always has been and always will be the same. The old folk of ourgrandfathers' young days sang a song bearing exactly the same burden;and the young folk of to-day will drone out precisely similar nonsensefor the aggravation of the next generation. "Oh, give me back thegood old days of fifty years ago," has been the cry ever since Adam'sfifty-first birthday. Take up the literature of 1835, and you willfind the poets and novelists asking for the same impossible gift asdid the German Minnesingers long before them and the old Norse Sagawriters long before that. And for the same thing sighed the earlyprophets and the philosophers of ancient Greece. From all accounts,the world has been getting worse and worse ever since it was created.

All I can say is that it must have been a remarkably delightful placewhen it was first opened to the public, for it is very pleasant evennow if you only keep as much as possible in the sunshine and take therain good-temperedly.

Yet there is no gainsaying but that it must have been somewhat sweeterin that dewy morning of creation, when it was young and fresh, whenthe feet of the tramping millions had not trodden its grass to dust,nor the din of the myriad cities chased the silence forever away.

Life must have been noble and solemn to those free-footed, loose-robedfathers of the human race, walking hand in hand with God under thegreat sky. They lived in sunkissed tents amid the lowing herds. Theytook their simple wants from the loving hand of Nature. They toiledand talked and thought; and the great earth rolled around instillness, not yet laden with trouble and wrong.

Those days are past now. The quiet childhood of Humanity, spent inthe far-off forest glades and by the murmuring rivers, is goneforever; and human life is deepening down to manhood amid tumult,doubt, and hope. Its age of restful peace is past. It has its workto finish and must hasten on. What that work may be--what thisworld's share is in the great design--we know not, though ourunconscious hands are helping to accomplish it. Like the tiny coralinsect working deep under the dark waters, we strive and struggle eachfor our own little ends, nor dream of the vast fabric we are buildingup for God.

Let us have done with vain regrets and longings for the days thatnever will be ours again. Our work lies in front, not behind us; and"Forward!" is our motto. Let us not sit with folded hands, gazingupon the past as if it were the building; it is but the foundation.

Let us not waste heart and life thinking of what might have been andforgetting the may be that lies before us. Opportunities flit bywhile we sit regretting the chances we have lost, and the happinessthat comes to us we heed not, because of the happiness that is gone.

Years ago, when I used to wander of an evening from the fireside tothe pleasant land of fairy-tales, I met a doughty knight and true.

Many dangers had he overcome, in many lands had been; and all men knewhim for a brave and well-tried knight, and one that knew not fear;except, maybe, upon such seasons when even a brave man might feelafraid and yet not be ashamed. Now, as this knight one day waspricking wearily along a toilsome road, his heart misgave him and wassore within him because of the trouble of the way. Rocks, dark and ofa monstrous size, hung high above his head, and like enough it seemedunto the knight that they should fall and he lie low beneath them.

Chasms there were on either side, and darksome caves wherein fiercerobbers lived, and dragons, very terrible, whose jaws dripped blood.

And upon the road there hung a darkness as of night. So it came overthat good knight that he would no more press forward, but seek anotherroad, less grievously beset with difficulty unto his gentle steed.

But when in haste he turned and looked behind, much marveled our braveknight, for lo! of all the way that he had ridden there was naught foreye to see; but at his horse's heels there yawned a mighty gulf,whereof no man might ever spy the bottom, so deep was that same gulf.

Then when Sir Ghelent saw that of going back there was none, he prayedto good Saint Cuthbert, and setting spurs into his steed rode forwardbravely and most joyously. And naught harmed him.

There is no returning on the road of life. The frail bridge of timeon which we tread sinks back into eternity at every step we take. Thepast is gone from us forever. It is gathered in and garnered. Itbelongs to us no more. No single word can ever be unspoken; no singlestep retraced. Therefore it beseems us as true knights to prick onbravely, not idly weep because we cannot now recall.

A new life begins for us with every second. Let us go forwardjoyously to meet it. We must press on whether we will or no, and weshall walk better with our eyes before us than with them ever castbehind.

A friend came to me the other day and urged me very eloquently tolearn some wonderful system by which you never forgot anything. Idon't know why he was so eager on the subject, unless it be that Ioccasionally borrow an umbrella and have a knack of coming out, in themiddle of a game of whist, with a mild "Lor! I've been thinking allalong that clubs were trumps." I declined the suggestion, however, inspite of the advantages he so attractively set forth. I have no wishto remember everything. There are many things in most men's livesthat had better be forgotten. There is that time, many years ago,when we did not act quite as honorably, quite as uprightly, as weperhaps should have done--that unfortunate deviation from the path ofstrict probity we once committed, and in which, more unfortunatestill, we were found out--that act of folly, of meanness, of wrong.

Ah, well! we paid the penalty, suffered the maddening hours of vainremorse, the hot agony of shame, the scorn, perhaps, of those weloved. Let us forget. Oh, Father Time, lift with your kindly handsthose bitter memories from off our overburdened hearts, for griefs areever coming to us with the coming hours, and our little strength isonly as the day.

Not that the past should be buried. The music of life would be muteif the chords of memory were snapped asunder. It is but the poisonousweeds, not the flowers, that we should root out from the garden ofMnemosyne. Do you remember Dickens' "Haunted Man"--how he prayed forforgetfulness, and how, when his prayer was answered, he prayed formemory once more? We do not want all the ghosts laid. It is only thehaggard, cruel-eyed specters that we flee from. Le............