The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1881-11-23
MISCELLANY.
EARlK Associations

The. tone of a mans life is materially ar
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fpass his childhood. The city boy and the
country boy grow up With very different as
socations and although they may change
places, and the former become gentleman
farmer and the other :. Wall street bank
en-" still there are certain lines impressed
upon the character when the mind was young
and plastic which nothing can ever efface
Children born and bred by the sea, il they are
driven into the interior after they reach ma
turity, never get over the feeling that they
are exiled. The Alpine boy droops when he
is forced to live on the broad plain, where he
can no longer hear the dash of the waterfall,
and gaze at the snow-capped mountains, and
roam over the solemn valleys. The full bred
Islander always carries his insular associations
with him. The young people that were born
on the Isles of Shoals off the coast of New
Hampshire, tell us that they never eltat home
on the mainland. Those who pass their early
days in the solitude of the wild heath, where
nature puts on her grayest and most sombre
aspect, reflects in their souls the austere So
lemnity of their childhood home.
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with the sky and weather, which have their
origin in the fervid susceptibility of childhood
The rain, and the winds, and the thunder
storms, and the sweet Spring days, and the
sultry stiffness of Summer, aud the fragrant
breath Of Autumn, and the bracing cold of
Winter all have charm and a power over
the soul, which wove its spell around us when
we were very young. The rain pattering on
the house top, the wind whisling through the
crannies or bowling in the chimney, the breeze
signing through the pine tops, the snow drift
ing along the highways, the icy trees clothed
in their crystal garments, these sounds and
sights have ses aay S 81 tie
old church bell that used to summon us 70
Sunday service, and ring out their peals on
festal mornings, and toll the knell of the de-
parted, who can forget them.
| remember in my childhood being awaken
ed from sharp sleep by the sound of drums
and trumpets in the streets, and that music
fingers in my ear to this day whenever | read
of battles The first great picture that ever
saw transfixed me as nothing else has ever
done that have seen at home or abroad it
was not much of a painting, but the lurid
colors fell upon virgin tablet. The first
statue upon which my eye ever rested was
Chauntrey's Washington in the Boston State
House. and although it looks about as much
like the original as it does like Julius Caesar,
it has been, for more than century my
ideal Washington. bad, indeed, been ia
milar with certain wooden figures well-known
as f" Dexter's images" and among them were
the three Presidents, Washington Adams and
jefferson, all in high colors, aud with no at
tempt at dealzation, but | do not call these
statues.
Who is there that does not recollect with
perfect memory the first important town that
he visited, and all the new associations that it
quickened in his mind 1t is just sixty years
since drove over the bridge from Charlestown
80 Boston, and saw the round dome Of the
State House looming up in the fog and great
~ magnded by the mist aud remember, as
if it were thing of yesterday, the strange
emotion which possessed me as the stage
coach ratified through the narrow side street,
where we could almost touch the buildings on
both Sides and then wheeled into the inner
court yard of the old Eastern Stage House in
| Ann street, where the passengers from "Down
East were always expected to longe. Tavern
and street have both been blotted out for
nearly a year. There was a Cornhill and
Cheapside in my native town, and when
saw these familiar signs in London, it made
me feel as if were at home. The woods aud
the springs, and the caves, and the water
courses, and the meadows which we frequent
| ed in our childhood-perhaps it is not well to
revisit them in after life, for the fancy has
clothed them with an enchantment that is
likely to be dissipated when we find how tame
and commonplace they really are.
The odor of certain familiar flowers may
bring back, iih singular distinctness, the
memory of scenes and seasons which had been
long forgotten. The narcssus is associated in
my mind with certain pleasant Sunday
afternoon, when | smeed the flower in my
fathers garden--the only place in which we
were allowed to stroll on that sacred day and
the lilac with certain day or the year, when we
were summoned to the chapel to recite the
Assembly's catechism to the venerable minis
ter-all ministers were venerable then--and
we were accustomed to adorn the room with
this fragrant flower. The smell of the pine
and the spruce, the peculiar aroma of the salt
meadow, and the more pungent effluvium of
tar, how many things they recall There are
rooms and closets and garrets and barns and
schoolhouses which are Unidentified with pc
cuiar odor--there are perfumes which are
associated with certain persons whom we
knew in childhood-I never smell the snuff
bean without its bringing my good old aunts
to life again.