it fades away and is lost among the invisible things of the air,
without saying to himself, 'Such are the visions of youth; such the
hopes, the grand schemes of life, looming up in beautiful distinctness
before the mind's eye, growing fainter and fainter as life wears away,
and then disappearing forever. Such are the things of this life,
beautiful as they appear, unsubstantial shadows all.' And then, as the
fire consumes the weed, exhausting itself upon the substance which
feeds it, burning lower and lower, till it goes out for lack of
aliment, who will not be reminded of life itself? the animated form,
the body instinct with vitality, changing and changing as time sweeps
along, till the spirit that gave it vigor and comeliness, and power
and beauty, is called away, and it becomes at last mere dust and
ashes. And then again, when the pipe itself falls from the teeth, or
the table, or the mantel, or the shelf--as fall it surely will, sooner
or later--and is broken, and the fragments are thrown out of the
window, or swept out at the door, who can fail to see in this, the
type of life's closing scene? the body broken by disease and death,
carried away and hidden in the earth, to remain among the useless
rubbish of the past, to be seen no more forever? Yes, yes! there is a
great deal of philosophy in a pipe, if people will take pains to
study it.

"I have a pleasant time of it once or twice a year with an old
gentleman, living away in the country; one whom memory calls up from
the dim and shadowy twilight of my earliest recollections, as a tall
stalwart man, already the head of a family with little children around
him. Those who were then little children have grown up to be men and
women, and have drifted away upon the currents of life, themselves
fathers and mothers, with grey hairs gathering upon their heads. I
visit this venerable philosopher in his hearty and green old age,
every summer. I see him now, in my mind's eye, sitting under the
spreading branches of the trees planted by himself half a century ago,
which cast their shadows upon the pleasant lawn in front of his
dwelling--discussing politics, morals, history, religion,
philosophy--recounting anecdotes of the early settlement of the
county of which he was a pioneer; and I see how calmly and
deliberately he smokes, while he calls up old memories from the
shadowy past, discoursing wisely of the present, or speaking
prophetically of the future. I saw him last in Ju