Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source: Google Books
https://books.google.com/books?id=7pcuAAAAYAAJ
(Princeton University)
2. This volume includes Henry de Cerons Vol. I.
and Vol. II.; and short stories entitled Eva
St. Clair and Annie Deer.
3. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
It is difficult to discover what are the exact sources from whichspring the thrilling feelings of joy and satisfaction with which welook back to the days of our early youth, and to the scenes in whichour infancy was passed. It matters not, or at least very little, whatare the pleasures to which we have addicted ourselves in after years,what are the delights that surround us, what are the enjoyments whichHeaven has cast upon our lot. Whenever the mind, either as a voluntaryact or from accidental associations, recalls, by the art of memory,the period of childhood, and the things which surrounded it, therecomes over us a general gladdening sensation of pure and simple joyswhich we never taste again at any time of life. It must be, at leastin part, that the delights of those days were framed in innocence andignorance of evil, and that he who declared that of such as littlechildren consisted the kingdom of heaven, has allotted to the babes ofthis world, in the brightness of their innocence, joys similar tothose of the world beyond--joys that never cloy, and that leave noregret. What though some mortal tears will mix with those delights;what though the flesh must suffer, and the evil one will tempt; yetthe allotted pleasures have a zest which not even novelty alone cangive, and an imperishable purity in their nature which makes theirremembrance sweeter than the fruition of other joys, and speaks theirorigin from heaven.
I love to dwell upon such memories, and to find likenesses for them inthe course, the aspect, and the productions of the earth itself. I seethe same sweetness and the same simplicity pervading the youth of allnature; and find in the sweet violet, the blue-eyed child of spring,an image of those early joys, pure, soft, and calm, and full of anodour that lasts upon the sense more than that of any other flower.
Thus it is, I suppose, and for these causes, that, in looking backupon the days of my youth, though those days were not as happy and asbright as they are to many people, I feel a sweet satisfaction which Iknew not at the actual time; for those hours--as one who gives adiamond to a child--bestowed upon me a gift the value of which I knewnot till many a year had passed away.
My first recollections refer to the period when I was about seven oreight years old, and to a sweet spot in the far south of France calledBlancford, not far from the great city of Bordeaux. The chateau inwhich I dwelt had belonged for ages to my ancestors, and the littleroom in one of the turrets which was assigned to me, looked towar