It is a common remark that youth is the happiest portion of life, but, like many other wise and deep sayings, it passes by us unheeded, till, at some late period in the great journey, we look back upon our track, and, by a comparison of the past with the present, are forced to feel and confess the truth, which we have before doubted. Mankind are ever tempted to think that there is something better before them; if they are not happy yet, they still indulge bright expectations. They are reluctant, even when advanced in years, to believe that the noon of life’s joys is past; that the chill of evening is already mingling in every breeze that feeds the breath; that there is no returning morn to them; that the course of the sun is now only downward; and that sunset is the final close of that day that has dawned upon them, and lighted up a world full of hopes, and wishes, and anticipations. It is not till the shadows, dark and defined, are creeping around us, and forcing us to deal honestly with ourselves, that we admit the truth--that life is made up of a series of illusions; that we are constantly pursuing bubbles, which seem bright at a distance and allure us on to the chase, but which fly from our pursuit, or, if reached, burst in the hand that grasps them. It is not till we are already at the landing and about to step into the bark that is to bear us from the shore, that we come to the conclusion that human life is a chase, in which the game is nothing, and the pursuit everything; and that the brightest and best portion of this chase is found in the spring morning, when the faculties are fresh, the fancy pure, and all nature robed in dew, and chiming with the music of birds, and bees, and waterfalls. It is something to have enjoyed life, even if that enjoyment may not come again, for memory can revive the past, and at least bring back its echoes. It is a pleasure to me, now that I am crippled and gray--a sort of hulk driven a-wreck upon the shore, and if incapable of further adventures upon the main, at least inaccessible to the surges that rise and rave upon its bosom--to look out to sea--to mark the sails that still glide over its surface--and, above all, to busy my fancy with the incidents of my own voyage upon the great ocean of life.