I was recalling to memory, the other day, all the friends and acquaintance of my boyhood and youth, that I could recollect; and I mustered a goodly list. My mind wandered from their _names_ to their hopes and plans; I recalled the schemes and enterprizes, which I knew they had meditated. The train once started, visions of bygone days and circumstances poured in upon me. Again, I sauntered, arm in arm, with a friend, through the moon-lit streets, on a summer’s evening--again, I wandered listlessly along the beach--again, I stood upon the summits of the hills which surrounded the abode of my youth--again, I heard the confiding strain of youthful friendship--I saw the face lit with the joy of anticipated triumph--the step, unnaturally firm, proud and elastic. Alas! where now were those friends? Some were dead--some were in obscurity--many were in mediocrity of life--few, how few, had _approached_ the goal of their youthful wishes. And what was the cause of all this? Was the fault in the men, or their plans? Upon the _plans_ I fixed it; for I could not, and I would not, lay aught to the charge of the loved ones of my youth. And where was the fault in the plans? Was it not _here_--that the _plans_ were founded on the _hopes_, while the _hopes_ should have been founded on the _plans_? _Hope_ is the _etherial_--_plan_ the _material_ part of an expectation. A plan, founded on a hope, is like a house founded on the sand--it cannot endure. As verdant forests and luxuriant vegetation adorn and beautify the sides, and white fleecy clouds cap the summits, of a rock-based mountain, softening the rugged cliffs, filling up the chasms, smoothing the precipices, and concealing the roughness of the path which winds up the ascent; so should _Hope_, with its varied hues, tinge and adorn the ever-during frame-work reared by _Reason_. So _should_ it be--but, is it so? Do not men strive rather to throw a semblance of reason over their hopes? Do they not build castles in the air, and then exert all their ingenuity to give an appearance of probability, or at least of _possibility_, to their baseless fabrics? O Hope! thou art a blessing, and thou art a _curse_. Thou art an intrusive, impudent, officious, treacherous _imp_--thou art a lying varlet--a cheating knave--thou hast no conscience--thou wilt gull, over and over again, prince and peasant, rich and poor, the unjust judge and the oppressed widow. Men kick thee out of doors, and again thou comest. Thou art a very Proteus--deny thee entrance in _one_ shape, and instantly thou takest another. Sometimes thou servest the devil, and sometimes thou doest business on thine own account. Again, I say, hang thee for an intermeddling imp!