Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

the heavens. The silence is peopled with the past; sorrowfulremorses for sins and short-comings—memoriesof passionate joys and griefs rise out of their graves,both now alike calm and sad. Eyes, as I shut mine, lookat me, that have long ceased to shine. The town andthe fair landscape sleep under the starlight, wreathedin the autumn mists. Twinkling among the houses alight keeps watch here and there, in what may be a sickchamber or two. The clock tolls sweetly in the silentair. Here is night and rest. An awful sense of thanksmakes the heart swell, and the head bow, as I pass tomy room through the sleeping house, and feel as thougha hushed blessing were upon it.Thackeray77ON A JOKE I ONCE HEARDFROM THE LATE THOMAS HOODThe good-natured reader who has perused some of theserambling papers has long since seen (if to see has beenworth his trouble) that the writer belongs to the oldfashionedclasses of this world, loves to remember verymuch more than to prophesy, and though he can’t helpbeing carried onward, and downward, perhaps, on thehill of life, the swift milestones marking their forties,fifties—how many tens or lustres shall we say?—he sitsunder Time, the white-wigged charioteer, with his backto the horses, and his face to the past, looking at thereceding landscape and the hills fading into the graydistance. Ah me! those gray, distant hills were greenonce, and here, and covered with smiling people! As wecame up the hill there was difficulty, and here and therea hard pull to be sure, but strength, and spirits, and allsorts of cheery incident and companionship on the road;there were the tough struggles (by heaven’s merciful