A LOST ILLUSION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXiX, Issue 7730, 25 February 1909, Page 1

A LOST ILLUSION.

In-revisiting the scene of childhood after a louu; aWnce, it is well to allow for tiie shrinkage which time brings ■ibout, otherwise: one's experience is likely to be similar to that of one recently described by a man who had not •■■{■(>n hi; bovhoo'd homo for thirty

wars. ' " All my life since I left the country," begins the man, "I have looked back on the scenes of my childhood with reverence. Everything connected with those early days loomed large m my mind, "The river that flowed through my grandfather's farm was a majestic stream, the house was a mansion, the trees grew to prodigious proportions, the garden was roomy, and the flowers and fruits rivalled those of the Garden of Eden; m fact, the whole scheme of life was on a magnificent scale. " Now I was wont to boast of these scones to any of my friends who would consent to be bored. They couldn't show me anything m the country line but I was ready with a remark, beginning, 'Well, when I was a boy,' and so on, through boast after boast. " I have stopped all that now, for when I went back last summer I found that it was just an ordinary farmhouse—that mansion of my youth ; and the river was a tiny, lazy stream, and the orchard was small, and there wasn't much left of the garden. " I wish I hadn't gone back at all, the man concluded, with a half sad smilr. "It was much more comfortable to keep that prettily coloured picture m my mind, and talk and dream about it to my heart's content."