अनुक्रम (Contents)

recollections of childhood

Summary of the Essay

There are many such men in the world as find not as to an amusement in the world except that the world is familiar with all those things that are associated with them. The things that pass unobserved are lost to them. But other people enjoy living in the midst of crowd and mould their lives such as is above the life of the vulgar. Life is short and there are found few instances of true friendship and good will. There are some wiseman who consider it pious to preserve the memory of their dead and they withdraw themselves from the rest of the world in a certain season so as to remember their friends and relatives who are no more in this world. And actually when we advance in age, there is not left any pleasant thing except that we remember with sorrow to those who are not in our midst, but passed some pleasant hours of mirth and laughter with them. Remember it, the author reproaches himself saying why he does not feel the same sorrow and sobriety in his heart for his friends and relatives as he felt at the time of their departure from this world. Though it is also a blessing of nature that we forget the affliction with passage of time that we felt at the time of the death of dearones. Yet, we should remember those sad moments now and then and feel in our heart that melancholy and sincerity that affected as when they bade last farewell to us. Keeping in view this thing the author dedicates the day of June 6, 1710 to the memory of those with whom he ever lived and who were most dear to him.

The author experienced the first sorrow at the age of five when his father left for his heavenly abade. The author was amazed to think what change had come to all the members of family and why nobody played with him. Then he entered the room where the deadbody of his father lay and his mother was shedding tears sitting beside his deadbody. He had a cottledore which he let fall on the coffin of his father and cried ‘Papa’ Seeing this his mother was overwhelmed with sorrow. She caught hold of him and took him tightly in her embrace and said to him that Papa could not hear him and he would never play with him. People were carrying him to bury from where he would never return. The author says that his mother was a very beautiful woman and there was dignity in her weeping. Her lamentation affected him so much that since that day pity became his weakness. The impressions that a child’s mind receives in infancy remain with the child throughout his life in the same way as the work with which the child is born. The author was overwhelmed to think of her mother’s tears eren before he could know what affliction was and this was an ineradicable affect upon his heart.

Those who are old are better able to remember those things and incidents that took place in their youth. It is the reason why he more quickly remembers his friends of youthful days and make him malancholic. We remember most the untimely and unhappy deaths. When some sad event takes place, we fail to be indifferent to it, though we know that it must happen and was inevitable. Thus we bewail most the people who have been relieved from the afflictions of life. Every object that emerges in our imagination produces various passions in our heart, which are according to the circumstances of their departure. If we were in army we would think of those gay and agreeable men who would prosper in peace for a longtime. They would not fall a prey to the curse of fatherless and widows who had lost their dear ones in war. But the gallant men who are killed in war move our veneration more than pity. It means that we honour them. For them, we feel that no other ill or evil can approach them so easily and honourably as death approaches them. But when we turn our thoughts from the great parts of life on such occasions, and in place of bewailing those who stood ready to give death to those from whom they had the fortune to receive it. The author means to say that when we turn our thoughts from such noble objects and think of the ruin which innocents and tender suffer, pity unmixed with softness enters us and affects our soul atonce.

Here (if the author had proper words to express his feeling with tenderness) he would record the beauty, innocence and untimely death, of the first object his eyes over saw with love. The beauteous Virgin ! how unknowingly did she charm, how carelessly excel. Oh death. It is justified in coming to the bold, the ambitious, the high and the proud. But why is it so cruel to the weak, to the humble and to the thoughtless. Neither age, nor business, nor affect can remove her image from the other’s imagination. In the same week he saw her dressed for a ball and in a shroud. The habit of death of killing people became very cheap and bad. When he sees the sailing earth, a series or chain of disaster floaded his memory, when the author’s servant knocked his door and obstincted him with a latter. He had a big basket of the wine to be sold at Garraway’s Coffee-house the next Thursday. He sent for three of his friends. These three are so intimate friends that they are very good
friends to one another even though they may be in a bad state of mind. They entertain one another. The wine was very good, it made them cheerful than frolicsome. It revived their spirit.

They commented on it till two of the clock and before meeting at dinner the same day, they found that each of them had drunk two bottles, they found that they had various reasons to remember than forget what had passed the night before.

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