Not less
distinctly we remember the zest with which the wretched waiting for evil
tidings was exchanged for hopeful activity; the rush of preparations; the
anxiety which watched their passage through the ordeal of practice; the
growing sense of security; the mellowing down of novelty and privation
into routine and ease; the contrast, all the while, between the outward
peace of the colony, and the secret difficulties of finance and
commissariat; the long intermittent crisis which gave the administrative
no rest; the hopes and efforts for our return home, and the reversal of
them; all this, and--and--very much else as well, which was of acutest
interest at the time, and which it will become convenient to describe
only when it will be of interest to no one. All this passes before us in
the series of a long dissolving view, full of bright lights, and only
less full of unlovely shadows.
And, somehow, as we review the past this evening, pacing the beach in the
twilight, the fact accomplished seems to us not smaller, but greater than
when we lived in it. There are moments some would say of illusion, some
of vision--when the things most familiar to our eyes and thoughts,
whether in nature or human society, surprise us with a dignity and beauty
not discovered in them before.
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