The little, plump hand was
lean and bony, and wrinkles usurped the alabaster brow. Fifty years had
made its mark. But memory was, by time, untouched. We parted. I closed
my eyes, and there she was, in her girlhood's robes and her girlhood's
beauty. The lip, the cheek, the glorious eye, were all in memory
garnered still; and I loved that memory, but not the woman now. Another
was in the niche she first cut in my heart, whose cheek and eye and
pouting lip were young and lovely. Still these memories awoke out of
this meeting, and, for hours, I forgot that I was wrinkled, old, and
gray.
I wonder how many's history I am writing now? The history of the heart,
at last, is all the endearing history of waning life. Recur as we may
to every success, to every sorrow, and they whisper a chapter of the
heart. We struggle to make happy those we love. The gratifications of
wealth, ambition, and feeling, all refer to the heart. There could be
no pleasure from these memories if those we loved had not participated
in them. We build a home for her we love, and those who sprout around
us.
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