Page:The Leadbeater Papers (1862) Vol 1.djvu/28

When a state of disturbance pervades a nation, when the horrors of war have been felt or threatened, how do we cast a retrospective view to the days of tranquillity, when we sat as it were under our own viues and fig-trees, and none made us afraid—astonished that any are willing to relinquish the sweets of peace. The situation of outward alarm and the prospect of unsettlement ought to loosen the mind from those terrene things in which it was wont to delight.

It has not had that effect upon me. My heart swells with tender recollections of the past, and though prompt to enjoy the present, feels a regret at the memory of what I have lost, mixed with a pensive satisfaction that I have enjoyed those quiet pleasures. My native village was never so dear to me; and though the vernal time of childhood and the glowing sensations of youth are past, the autumn of life is not destitute of its tranquil enjoyments. This season of the year I am partial to; I admire the rich and varied prospects of the autumnal season, the employments by which it is enlivened, and the awakened remembrance of the year nearly gone. Thus, in the autumn of life, I feel my early sensations revived in the children and youth of our family, and I am led to look back, and, with the partiality which I feel to Ballitore, desire to retrace for their amusement and for my own those scenes, indifferent to other eyes, which have passed before mine not unnoticed. My abilities are limited; my sphere is limited also to the "sweet spot of the world" where