Page:The clerk of the woods.djvu/159

Rh ago—the iris and the four-o'clocks in a child's garden—we can still see in recollection's magic glass. And they are brighter than any rose that opened this morning. We have forgotten things without number; but other things—we shall never forget them. A friend or two that died when they and we were young; "the loveliest and the best;" we can see them more plainly than most of those whose empty, conventionalized faces, each like the other, each wearing its mask, we meet day by day in the common round of business and pleasure. Death, which seemed to destroy them, has but set them beyond the risk of alteration and forgetfulness.

After all, the past is our one sure possession. There is our miser's chest. With that, while memory holds for us the key, we shall still be rich. There we will spend our gray hours, with friends that have kept their youth; one of the best of them our own true self, not as we were, nor as we are, but as we meant to be.

These pleasures, Melancholy, give;

And I with thee will choose to live."