The Caxtons

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1875. Excerpt: ... ESSAY XXII. MOTIVE POWER. A Little while ago, as I was walking down Parliament Street, I suddenly found myself face to face with a man who, in the days of my early youth, had inspired me with a warm regard and a lively admiration. Though he was some years older than myself, we had been for a short time very intimate; but after we had once separated, I saw no more of him till thus, towards the evening of life, we two, who had parted company in its morn, recognised each other at the first glance; and, after exclaiming, "Is it you?" halted mute, like men to whom startling news is abruptly told. The past, as when we last separated, the present as we now met, brought before us in the extreme of contrast; the long, gradual, stealthy interval between the dates annulled; so that, in uttering those words, "Is it you?" each saw himself as he was in youth, and simultaneously felt the change time had wrought in his own life by reading the work of time in the face of the other. But such reflection was, as it were, the flash of the moment, and with the next moment it passed away. As I was then hurrying down to the House of Commons, somewhat fearful lest I should not be in time to vote on a question worn so threadbare that it was not likely the patience of members wonld allow it to be long rediscussed, my old acquaintance kindly turned back from his own way to accommodate himself to mine; and when we parted at the doors of Westminster Hall, much to my surprise he had invited me to visit him in the country, and, perhaps still more to his surprise, I had accepted the invitation. Sir Percival Tracey (so let me call the person I have just introduced to the reader) was one of those men to whom Nature gives letters of recommendation to Posterity, which, from some chance or an...