hours in each day of the year, been closely associated--being suddenly
removed from them--they seemed as dead to me. There is a fine passage,
which may serve to illustrate this fancy, in a Tragedy by Sir Robert
Howard, speaking of a friend's death:

--'Twas but just now he went away;
I have not since had time to shed a tear;
And yet the distance does the same appear
As if he had been a thousand years from me.
Time takes no measure in Eternity.

To dissipate this awkward feeling, I have been fain to go among them
once or twice since; to visit my old desk-fellows--my co-brethren of
the quill--that I had left below in the state militant. Not all the
kindness with which they received me could quite restore to me that
pleasant familiarity, which I had heretofore enjoyed among them.
We cracked some of our old jokes, but methought they went off but
faintly. My old desk; the peg where I hung my hat, were appropriated
to another. I knew it must be, but I could not take it kindly. D----l
take me, if I did not feel some remorse--beast, if I had not,--at
quitting my old compeers, the faithful partners of my toils for six
and thirty years, that smoothed for me with their jokes and conundrums
the ruggedness of my professional road. Had it been so rugged then
after all? or was I a coward simply? Well, it is too late to repent;
and I also know, that these suggestions are a common fallacy of the
mind on such occasions. But my heart smote me. I had violently broken
the bands betwixt us. It was at least not courteous. I shall be some
time before I get quite reconciled to the separation. Farewell, old
cronies, yet not for long, for again and again I will come among
ye, if I shall have your leave. Farewell Ch----, dry, sarcastic,