Page:Romance & Reality 3.pdf/304

302 gate, which, however, opened on no actual road; but he was familiar with every old tree and grassy knoll within that wide domain. Childhood, more than any other period, links its remembrance with inanimate objects, perhaps because its chief pleasures are derived from them. The hillock whose top was left with a flying step—the oak, to scale whose leafy fortress had in it something of that sense of danger and exertion in which even the earliest age delights—the broad sheet of water, whose smooth surface has been so often skimmed and broken by the round pebble, to whose impetus the young arm lent its utmost vigour—how deeply are these things graven upon the memory! The great reason why the pleasures of childhood are so much more felt in their satisfaction, is, that they suffice unto themselves. The race is run without an eye to a prize;—the oak is climbed without reference to aught that will reward the search;—the stone is flung upon the waters, but not in the hope that, ere many days, it will be found again. The simple exertion is its own exceeding great reward. Hope destroys pleasure;* and as life