the corruptions of men prominent
before the world for distinguished abilities, and equally distinguished
immoralities. From these radiate that open-hearted honesty which
permeates society, and teaches by example, and which so often rebukes
the laxity of those who, from position, should be an example and an
ornament. The purling stream murmuring its lowly song beneath the
shading forest and modest shrubs may attract less attention than the
turbid, roaring river, but is always purer, sweeter, more health-giving
and lovely.

The romance of youth is the sugar of life, and its sweets to memory, as
life recedes, augment as "distance lends enchantment to the view." We
make no account of the evanescent troubles which come to us then but
for a moment, and are immediately chased away with the thickening
delights that gild young life and embalm it for the memories of age.
The gravity of years delights to recount these; and few are indisposed
to listen, for it is a sort of heart-history of every one, and in
hearing or reading, memory awakes, and youth and its joys are back
again, even to tottering, palsied age. Then, gentle reader, do not
sneer at me: these are all I have left; my household gods are torn
away, my boys sleep in bloody graves, my home is desolate, I am alone,
with only one to comfort me--she who shares the smiles and tears which
lighten and soothe the weary days of ebbing life.

CHAPTER XIII.

INFLUENCE OF CHILDHOOD.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS--FORTUNE--MIRABEAU B. LAMAR--DR. ALONZO CHURCH--JULIUS
CAESAR--L.Q.C. LAMAR--TEXAN INDEPENDENCE--COLQUITT--LUMPKIN--WHAT A
GREAT MAN CAN DO IN ONE DAY--CHARLES J. JENKINS.

The memories of childhood cling, perhaps, more tenaciously than those
of any after period of life. The attachments and antipathies then
formed are more enduring. Our school-companions at our first
school--the children of our immediate neighborhood, who first rolled
with us upon the grass, and dabbled with us in the branch--we never
forget. Time, absence, protracted separation, all fail to obliterate
the features, the dispositions, or anything about them, which so
unconsciously fastens upon the mind, and grows into the tender soul of
childhood. These memories retain and bring back with them the feelings,
the likes and dislikes, which grew with them. These feelings are the
basis of lifetime loves, and eternal antipathies.

The boy is father to the man, as the girl is mother to the woman. Who
that has l