Part 1

LOOKING TOWARD SUNSET.

FROM

SOURCES OLD, NEW, ORIGINAL, AND SELECTED.

LOOKING TOWARD SUNSET.

From Sources Old and New, Original and Selected.

BY L. MARIA CHILD.

“When the Sun is setting, cool fall its gleams upon the earth, and the shadows lengthen; but they all point toward the Morning.” JEAN PAUL RICHTER.

“I am fully convinced that the Soul is indestructible, and that its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the Sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set in night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere.”--GOETHE.

BOSTON: HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY. The Riverside Press, Cambridge. 1881.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by

L. MARIA CHILD,

in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

TWELFTH EDITION.

MY DEAR AND HONORED FRIENDS

MISS LUCY OSGOOD AND MISS HENRIETTA SARGENT,

This Volume

IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED,

IN TOKEN OF GRATITUDE FOR THEIR EXAMPLE, WHICH CONFERS BEAUTY AND DIGNITY ON DECLINING YEARS, BY ACTIVE USEFULNESS AND KINDLY SYMPATHY WITH THE HUMAN RACE.

PREFACE.

I occasionally meet people who say to me, “I had many a pleasant hour, in my childhood, reading your Juvenile Miscellany; and now I am enjoying it over again, with my own little folks.”

Such remarks remind me that I have been a long time in the world; but if a few acknowledge me as the household friend of two generations, it is a pleasant assurance that I have not lived altogether in vain.

When I was myself near the fairy-land of childhood, I used my pen for the pleasure of children; and now that I am travelling down the hill I was then ascending, I would fain give some words of consolation and cheer to my companions on the way. If the rays of my morning have helped to germinate seeds that ripened into flowers and fruit, I am grateful to Him, from whom all light and warmth proceeds. And now I reverently ask His blessing on this attempt to imitate, in my humble way, the setting rays of that great luminary, which throws cheerful gleams into so many lonely old homes, which kindles golden fires on trees whose foliage is falling, and lights up the silvered heads on which it rests with a glory that reminds one of immortal crowns.

L. MARIA CHILD.

CONTENTS.

PAGE THE FRIENDS L. M. Child 1

THE GOOD OLD GRANDMOTHER Anonymous 37

THE CONSOLATIONS OF AGE Zschokke 39

THE OLD MAN DREAMS O. W. Holmes 44