The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1891-08-16
IN LONDON AT LAST.
Continued from Ninth Pdqc.

hope long since blighted. We remember how
then we would have scorned to lie and deceive.
Now 1t is the burden of our daily converse.
tion. It's true, we are not the uncouth, awk-
ward, clumsy, unSempt, and home.spun
farmer boy of a dozen years ago These
things have been replaced to some extent by
an easier manner and better fit, but beneath
this improved exterior is q dwarfed, selfish
nature that makes us try to stink away and
hide from ourselves when old scenes suggest
the manly, honest frank boy of IA. And then
how we notice the flight of time when we re-
turn to our old homes. The beardless boy
whom we left torturing insects and torment
ing frogs Is now called "papa," and the little
girl we remember in short dresses now has
real live doll who calls her "mamma."
Some things, however, seem to have grown
smaller. The old barn that, according to our
early ideas, was about the most imposing
struc ture In existence, now seems about one
tenth of its original size. The roads seem so
marrow, the trees so low, the lanes SO short,
the fields so small. The world itself has be-
come infinitely smaller since those childhood
days, and now those faraway and almost
mythical countries that our early imagination
used to picture as fairyland have become very
real and very near. And at night everything
seems so peaceful and quiet. AS the twilight
deepens the cricket begins his same restful
old song, the night owl in the grove near
by sends forth his accustomed wall, the
freflies fleck the meadows with their uncer-
tain light the droning of insects and the
whirring of bats In the air above produces for
the first few nights in the country q strange
feeling. We drop into reverie and picture
familiar scenes and familiar faces. We are
again bareheaded and barefootcd making dust
heaps and sand piles in the road, climbing
trees, or with our favorite dogs securing the
fields and woods for mice, rats and other small
game, or we are wading up and down the little
stream back of the orchard stoning frogs and
water snakes. Then night comes and we see
the dear, patient face again and feel her gen
tie arms around us as she tucKs us In and
kisses us good night; we see that same sainted
face once more as 1t lies cold in death. Then
We experience again that sitting, desolate
feeling, too deep to show in tears, as we stand
by the open grave and watch 1t swallow up
what seems to us now all that is worth living
for. Then come those long, cherries days
when our pent.up grief seems to choke us.
When existence becomes even to our youth
ful, happy natures burden and we almost
wish we could 60 with her. Then come several
years of inefficient household supervision.
Everything is neglected. Everything goes
wrong. Finally it dawns upon us that we are
to have new mother, and how mortified,
panied and humiliated we feel Then one
day she is brought home and now we feel
more miserable and gloomy than ever We
see those thousand little things that we loved
desecrated by others hands. But we gradu-
ually soften. We have been too preiudiced
Our mother is kind to us and does all she can
for our comfort, but we feel no one can ever
take the place Of our real mother. Then we
go off to college, and only come home for our
vacations, and SO l sit In the twilight and
gradually dream my boyhood self into my
present self and / awaken with start, for,
behold l have almost finished this letter and
havn't said word about Europe. But,
presto and now we are nearing the greatest
city on the globe, twice as large as New York
and Brooklyn combined, twice as great a
population as Paris and nearly four times as
large as Berlin or Vienna. My diary: car
rived at Kings Cross Station at 4:30 p. m.,
walked to the Strand and engaged room for
a week at No. II Cecil street, took wash
and went to dinner at restaurant on the
Strand, after which walked 10 the Houses of
Parliament, Buckingham Palace and St.
James Park, returnedh way of the celebrated
Victoria Embankment and III the evening
went to Her Majesty's Theatre, saw the divine
Sarah in Joan OF Arch didn't stay for last
act.n ALvA SIGEL RoUsH
"Faust Beer' is guaranteed to be straight
lager and six months old.
$3.50 To Atlantic City via Royal Blue