Love! the sweet, the
pure, the innocent; yet the causer of fierce hate, of wishes for
deadly revenge, of bloody deeds, and madness, and the horrors of hell.
Love! that wanders over battlefields, turning up mangled human trunks,
and parting back the hair from gory faces, and daring the points of
swords and the thunder of artillery, without a fear or a thought of
danger.
Words! words! I begin to see I am, indeed, an old man, and garrulous!
Let me go back--yes, I see it must be many years!
It was at the close of the last century. I was at that time studying
law, the profession my father follow'd. One of his clients was an
elderly widow, a foreigner, who kept a little ale-house, on the banks
of the North River, at about two miles from what is now the centre of
the city. Then the spot was quite out of town and surrounded by fields
and green trees. The widow often invited me to come and pay her
a visit, when I had a leisure afternoon--including also in the
invitation my brother and two other students who were in my father's
office. Matthew, the brother I mention, was a boy of sixteen; he was
troubled with an inward illness--though it had no power over his
temper, which ever retain' d the most admirable placidity and
gentleness.
He was cheerful, but never boisterous, and everybody loved him; his
mind seem'd more develop'd than is usual for his age, though his
personal appearance was exceedingly plain. Wheaton and Brown, the
names of the other students, were spirited, clever young fellows, with
most of the traits that those in their position of life generally
possess.
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