The Knickerbocker, Vol. 10, No. 5, November 1837Various
History
The Knickerbocker, Vol. 10, No. 5, November 1837
Various
Periodicals
IT is right pleasant and joyous to see the number of juvenile
patriots who are taken forth into the country, (whose glories for
the first time, perhaps, are shed upon their town-addicted eyes,) on
the great national holiday. To them, the flaunting honors of the
landscape have a new beauty, and a joyous meaning; the sun hangs
above them like a great ball of fire in the sky; the waters wear
a glittering sheen; and the wide moving pulse of life beats with
a universal thrill of happiness to them. I could not but note the
number of urchins in the steamer, whom their 'paternal derivatives'
were guiding around, and showing, to _their_ vision at least, 'all
the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.'
* * * * *
WELL, to those who are disposed to glean philosophy from the mayhap
less noticeable objects of this busy world, there are few sights more
lovely than childhood. The little cherub who now sits at my knee, and
tries, with tiny effort, to clutch the quill with which I am playing
for you, good reader; whose capricious taste, varying from ink-stand
to paper, and from that to books, and every other portable thing--all
'movables that I could tell you of'--he has in his little person
those elements which constitute both the freshness of our sublunary
mortality, and that glorious immortality which the mortal shall yet
put on. Gazing upon his fair young brow, his peach-like cheek, and
the depths of those violet eyes, I feel myself rejuvenated. That
which bothered Nicodemus, is no marvel to me. I feel that I have a
new existence; nor can I dispel the illusion. It is harder, indeed,
to believe that he will ever be what I am, than that I am otherwise
than he is now. I cannot imagine that he will ever become a pilosus
adult, with harvests for the razor on that downy chin. Will those
golden locks become the brown auburn? Will that forehead rise as
a varied and shade-changing record of pleasure or care? Will the
classic little lips, now colored as by the radiance of a ruby, ever
be fitfully bitten in the glow of literary composition?--and will
those sun-bright locks, which hang about his temples like the soft
lining of a summer cloud, become meshes where hurried fingers shall
thread themselves in play? By the mass, I cannot tell. But this I
know. That which hath been, shall be: the lot of manhood, if he live,
will be upon him; the charm--the obstacle--the triumphant fever--the
glory, the success--the far-reaching thoughts,
----'That make them eagle wings
To pierce the unborn years.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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