The Argosy — page 72: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

62 On Board the *S Batavia.” have passed away for ever, just as youth passes, and ends our first and happiest volume, though, perchance, in Heaven’s mercy, it may not be our best. | To-night we trod in our old footsteps, and their echoes were full of melancholy. We went up into our old rooms at the Royal, and they were haunted by visions of a hundred happy faces, now scattered in all quarters of the globe. Not a few, indeed, had passed away to that goal whence there is no returning, though all had been young and only six years had rolled on in the stream of time. ‘¢ What are you looking for, sir?” asked a servant, as we wandered from one room to another. And when we answered that we were looking up old lost friends and renewing old recollections, he suggested that perhaps they had only gone out for a walk and would be in presently. No, never again. Even if we all found ourselves there once more, under exactly the same circumstances, still all would be as different from those days as light from darkness. The pleasures would have been anticipated, and anticipation is the sting and marplot of all enjoyment. The more intensely longed for, the greater the disap- pointment. It is from our unexpected pleasures that our greatest happiness is drawn. Then again, it is in the very essence of our human nature to clothe our past in a halo of bliss and romance, that certainly did not exist in the intensity we now give to it. Imagination runs riot when dwelling both’on the past or the future. It is given to few to live intensely the life of the present. But those who do so live their lives twice over: a double portion is theirs. To-night, Gibraltar looked very deserted. The arrival of the Batavia raised no internal commotion. Even the bosoms of the shopkeepers beat with no ardent expectations. The rock above us loomed out terrifically great and portentous in the darkness. The outline of the sleeping lion could be traced against the background of the still darker sky. Light twinkled here and there upon its surface like stars in a new firmament. Those other far-off stars in the heaven of heavens were bright and scintillating and large and glorious, according to the fashion of the southern skies. One felt in the very centre of a military station. There were gates and points and drawbridges, and sentries innumerable. There were many barracks, and every now and then a bugle call sounded upon the air. The martial atmosphere was somewhat heavy and terrific, and the word DisciPLiNe seemed to flash from every bayonet. One felt here under strict surveillance, and it was slightly depressing. The long, straggling street, ending in the market place and more barracks, was comparatively deserted. Beyond lies the road leading to Spain and that long range of hills possessing the Queen’s chair; and a very hard and uncomfort- able seat her Majesty must have found it. And yet beyond that, conniclooolkks CO