In winter , when our village is thrown into a bustle by the arrival of perhaps a score of country dealers , bargaining for frozen fish , to be transported hundreds of miles , and eaten fresh in Vermont or Canada , I am a pleased but idle spectator in the throng . For I launch my boat no more . When the shore was solitary , I have found a pleasure that seemed even to exalt my mind , in observing the sports or contentions of two gulls , as they wheeled and hovered about each other , with hoarse screams , one moment flapping on the foam of the wave , and then soaring aloft , till their white bosoms melted into the upper sunshine . In the calm of the summer sunset , I drag my aged limbs , with a little ostentation of activity , because I am so old , up to the rocky brow of the hill . There I see the white sails of many a vessel , outward bound or homeward from afar , and the black trail of a vapor behind the eastern steamboat ; there , too , is the sun , going down , but not in gloom , and there the illimitable ocean mingling with the sky , to remind me of eternity . But sweetest of all is the hour of cheerful musing and pleasant talk , that comes between the dusk and the lighted candle , by my glowing fireside . And never , even on the first Thanksgiving night , when Susan and I sat alone with our hopes , nor the second , when a stranger had been sent to gladden us , and be the visible image of our affection , did I feel such joy as now . All that belong to me are here ; Death has taken none , nor Disease kept them away , nor Strife divided them from their parents or each other ; with neither poverty nor riches to disturb them , nor the misery of desires beyond their lot , they have kept New England 's festival round the patriarch 's board . For I am a patriarch ! Here I sit among my descendants , in my old arm-chair and immemorial corner , while the firelight throws an appropriate glory round my venerable frame . Susan ! My children ! Something whispers me , that this happiest hour must be the final one , and that nothing remains but to bless you all , and depart with a treasure of recollected joys to heaven . Will you meet me there ? Alas ! your figures grow indistinct , fading into pictures on the air , and now to fainter outlines , while the fire is glimmering on the walls of a familiar room , and shows the book that I flung down , and the sheet that I left half written , some fifty years ago . I lift my eyes to the looking-glass , and perceive myself alone , unless those be the mermaid 's features , retiring into the depths of the mirror , with a tender and melancholy smile . All ! one feels a chillness , not bodily , but about the heart , and , moreover , a foolish dread of looking behind him , after these pastimes . I can imagine precisely how a magician would sit down in gloom and terror , after dismissing the shadows that had personated dead or distant people , and stripping his cavern of the unreal splendor which had changed it to a palace .
And now XXXXX a moral to my revery .
In between for into of on that till to while