There flits dimly before me
the image of a little girl, whose name even I have forgotten, a
schoolmate, whom we missed one day, and were told that she had
died. But what death was I never had any very distinct idea, until
one day I climbed the low stone wall of the old burial-ground and
mingled with a group that were looking into a very deep, long,
narrow hole, dug down through the green sod, down through the brown
loam, down through the yellow gravel, and there at the bottom was
an oblong red box, and a still, sharp, white face of a young man
seen through an opening at one end of it. When the lid was closed,
and the gravel and stones rattled down pell-mell, and the woman in
black, who was crying and wringing her hands, went off with the
other mourners, and left him, then I felt that I had seen Death,
and should never forget him.
One other acquaintance I made at an earlier period of life than the
habit of romancers authorizes.--Love, of course.--She was a famous
beauty afterwards.--I am satisfied that many children rehearse
their parts in the drama of life before they have shed all their
milk-teeth.--I think I won't tell the story of the golden blonde.--
I suppose everybody has had his childish fancies; but sometimes
they are passionate impulses, which anticipate all the tremulous
emotions belonging to a later period. Most children remember
seeing and adoring an angel before they were a dozen years old.
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