I have sometimes thought that it would be a pleasant occupation for the fancy to throw oneself forward into the future, and to write the imaginary reminiscences of an old lady, one’s granddaughter, who was putting print to paper in 2050! What a strange picture she would give of ourselves! How often she would hit the mark, how often miss it by a hair’s-breadth! She would let us see ourselves, I suppose, as a race of almost legendary heroes, to be spoken of with bated breath: ours would be the rugged virtues and the quaint, old-world ways! But the author who should attempt such a flight of the imagination would, no doubt, be accused not only of fantasy in his forecasts of the future, but of misrepresentation in the picture he gave of his own times. It would be a perilous task; let me present the idea to anyone who will make use of it!
And so let me close my story, with a kindly thought for all my readers, and a tranquil regard for my own approaching end. That regard I cannot express better than in some old lines which I found in a book of travels[[17]]—the identity of the original author is uncertain:
Look upward, for the sky is not all cloud.
Look forward, think not of the dismal shroud.
No lane but has a turning, and no road
That leads not somewhere to a warm abode.
Take courage. If the day seems rather long,
The cooling dew will fall at evensong.
Believe, and Doubt is sure to slink away;
Doubt is a cur, and Fear is but a fool;