The panorama moves slowly on before my mental vision and I see myself a youth at the portal of manhood.
Into view now comes the fair girl who honored and blessed me with a love that has proved almost beyond the power of conception. As I raise my eyes from the paper they rest on her dear face. Wonderful to relate, no lines of care do I discover. Save for the premature and very becoming silver of her hair and the matronly development of figure there is but little indication of the many years that have passed since we joined hands in our voyage of life. As her glance meets mine, she flashes at me, as in the days of yore, the same sweet smile of love and tenderness.
The early years of our married life appear before me. Those years when periods of worry alternated with others of freedom from care. The years of my early struggle against heavy odds, to gain success. The years of "Love's young dream" how sweet that side of my life seemed then, and how far sweeter, deeper, stronger seems now the love of our later years through the triumphs and trials those years brought with them.
To my mind comes the successive births of our children and the joy the advent of each brought into our family circle.
And now I see myself in the delirium of that well-nigh fatal illness when but for my devoted wife's careful nursing the occasion for writing this narrative would never have arisen.
The scene changes and year after year of prosperity rolls into view. Those years when with wealth steadily increasing I reveled in the business I had created and reared to such large proportions. The thought of the contrast with present conditions for an instant stops the beating of my heart—and yet I think, "'Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all."
Now comes that day when I considered the question of retiring from business. Oh! why did not the fates then guide me rightly? What years of misery would have been spared to those I loved—and yet that very love was the motive that swayed me.
The pictures change. Clouds gather and darken the sunshine of my life. Crashes of thunder sound in my ears and the storm of my first failure is upon me. "The ship founders." God help the passengers and crew!
The boat is launched and gathers them in—can it make the shore? Here and there a little smooth water, an occasional rift of light through the clouds—alas! only to be followed by greater darkness—and the pictures cease. But no, there is still one to come.
The boat is aground. Mountains of surf dash on the rocky coast, seeking to tear the frail craft to pieces. In the perspective behold the sea of many years, studded with the crafts of those friends of my former good ship Prosperity. How many I see that owe to me, some only a pennant, many a sail or two, and others the stanch deck on which they stand.