RUMINATION FIRST.
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!
Men talk of the pleasures of hope! have they never felt the misery of hope deferred—the pang of hope crushed? Have they ever estimated the amount of misery chargeable to this self-same hope? Who fathers Ambition, with all its woes, attendant and consequent? Hope. How many dream away their lives in listless vacuity, hoping all the while, that something will turn up! What injuries has Hope not done to youth? Then, when men ought to be training themselves for the stern realities of life—when they should prepare their provisions for its stormy voyage, Hope whispers that the course is clear—the ocean calm—the wind favorable. How many commence enterprizes, which can end in nothing but disappointment, and undertake duties, to the performance of which their abilities are inadequate, spirited on the while by Hope, the traitor, who stimulates his unconscious victims to mount round after round of the ladder, until, with a whoop and a laugh, he tears the veil from their eyes, and permits them to see and to feel that they are high, not on the temple, but on the pillory of Fame! ‘Hope sweetens labor’—does he? ‘Thank you, madam, I prefer it without sugar.’
Hold! I revoke—I take back somewhat that I have said. Hope—thou art an imp, but still a playful imp—full of mischief, but such a lively, laughing, little, curly-headed rogue, with such a comical look in the corner of thine eye, that for my life I cannot lose thee. I am inclined to say to thee, as one said to his dog—‘Ah! Tray! thou little knowest the mischief thou hast done.’
B. V.