This
was in 1830. Seventy years are gone since, and where now is his dream?
It will never be fulfilled. And it is best so; he is no longer fitted
for the position; no one would take him now; even if he got it, he would
not be able to do himself credit in it, on account of his deliberateness
of speech and lack of trained professional vivacity; he would be put on
real estate, and would have the pain of seeing younger and abler men
intrusted with the furniture and other such goods--goods which draw a
mixed and intellectually low order of customers, who must be beguiled of
their bids by a vulgar and specialised humour and sparkle, accompanied
with antics. But it is not the thing lost that counts, but only the
disappointment the loss brings to the dreamer that had coveted that thing
and had set his heart of hearts upon it, and when we remember this, a
great wave of sorrow for Howells rises in our breasts, and we wish for
his sake that his fate could have been different. At that time Hay's
boyhood dream was not yet past hope of realisation, but it was fading,
dimming, wasting away, and the wind of a growing apprehension was blowing
cold over the perishing summer of his life.
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