theatrical exhibitions, the reviews and processions,--which are only
not childish because they are practiced and admired by men instead of
children,--all the pomps and vanities of great cities, have shown me
no revelation of glory such as did that crowded school-room the week
before the Christmas holidays. But these were the splendors of life.
The truest and the strongest feelings do not connect themselves with
any scenes of gorgeous and gaudy magnificence; they are bound up in
the remembrances of home.

"The narrow orchard, with its grove of old apple-trees against one of
which I used to lean, and while I brandished a beanstalk, roar out
with Fitzjames,--

'Come one, come all; this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I!'--

while I was ready to squall at the sight of a cur, and run valorously
away from a casually approaching cow; the field close beside it, where
I rolled about in summer among the hay; the brook in which, despite of
maid and mother, I waded by the hour; the garden where I sowed
flower-seeds, and then turned up the ground again and planted
potatoes, and then rooted out the potatoes to insert acorns and
apple-pips, and at last, as may be supposed, reaped neither roses, nor
potatoes, nor oak-trees, nor apples; the grass-plots on which I played
among those with whom I never can play nor work again: all these are
places and employments,--and, alas, playmates,--such as, if it were
worth while to weep at all, it would be worth weeping that I enjoy no
longer.

"I remember the house where I first grew familiar with peacocks; and