The Chautauquan takes back to his or her busy life in the school room, the college chair, the pulpit, the sanctum, the parlor, and the kitchen, many beautiful pictures of memory.
In fancy does one often see the branches of grand old trees, fit pillars of one of God’s first temples, cross above one’s head, making a network for the laughing, blue, summer skies; in imagination does one again see a green landscape turn golden in the light of a fast setting sun. Ah! those vistas about the Hall in the Grove; can not you see those leafy avenues bending down to the lovely lake, now in the early morning stretching glassy and waveless, now at noon, tumbling and tossing its white caps abroad, now in the solemn night lying black and motionless, and reflecting the light of stars? Can one who has seen the moon rise over Long Point ever forget the sight? Recall now that midsummer night, when drifting out in your boat you idly watched those masses of clouds shift, part and separate to let the white glory of the moon shine through! How serene and lofty she hung, poised in mid-heaven. Higher and higher she climbed, pouring her wealth of light down upon the clouds heaped beneath her, until they, massed and piled upon each other, seemed like the glittering domes and towers of a city not made with hands. In vivid fancy you could almost trace the shining streets of gold, the gates of pearl, the walls of precious stones. The summer wind sighed softly around; the murmuring waters rippled about the keel of your boat; on the shore the lights danced and flickered like fireflies. Such a night is never to be forgotten. It is a scene of enchantment, a mid-summer night’s dream.
“In such a night as this, When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees And they did make no noise in such a night, Troilus methinks mounted the Trojan walls, And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents, Where Cressid’ lay that night.
“In such a night, Stood Dido with a willow in her hand, Upon the wild sea banks, and waved her love To come again to Carthage.”
Ah! these beautiful pictures “that hang on memory’s wall,” these day dreams, by their potent magic, heal the heart and brain when life’s fret and worry are hardly to be endured. A writer has truly said: