It is not the sense only of vanished
days; nor is it the sense of not having realised their joyfulness at
the time; it is a deeper regret than that; it is the shadow of the
uncertainty as to what will ultimately become of our individuality. If
one was assured of immortality, of permanence, of growth, of progress,
these regrets would fall off from one as gently as withered leaves
float from a tree; or rather, one would never think of them; but now
one has the sense of a certain number of beautiful days dealt out to
one by God, and the knowledge that they are spent one by one. Another
strange thing about the retrospective sadness of the vanished past is
that it is not the memorable days of life, as a rule, whose passing one
regrets. One would not, I think, wish to have one's days of triumph, of
success, or even the days when one was conscious of an extreme personal
happiness, back again. Partly it is that one seems to have appreciated
their quality and crushed out their sweetness--partly, too, there
mingles with days of extreme and conscious bliss a certain fever of the
spirit, a certain strain of excitement, that is not wholly pleasurable.
No, the days that one rather desires to have again are the days of
tranquil and easy contentment, when the old home-circle was complete,
and when one hardly guessed that one was happy at all, and did not
perceive--how could one?--as life rose serenely and strongly to its
zenith, what the pains and shadows of the declining life might be.
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