Page:Diary of ten years.djvu/195

177 been moderated and lowered down even to sluggishness; but some passing thought to-day opened a flood-gate which let them rush in upon me like an overwhelming current. I remembered the scenes of home, and the hour of parting, with a painful minuteness of detail, and a vividness of reality, which fell little short of reality itself. Vain philosophy! how easily and readily poor human nature resumes its sway when she finds you sleeping on your post! I wish some of you were here; I wish all of you were here:—no; 'tis a selfish wish; this life would not do for any of you. You would be obliged to forget, or at least dispense with, many comforts and refinements altogether; you must endeavour to lose the recollection of your former home, and if possible, of your former friends and feelings. What a task! how difficult! how impossible! yet otherwise no emigrant can be contented and happy here;