Not so ; not so . They are not truly wise who would affirm it . As the pure breath of children revives the life of aged men , so is our moral nature revived by their free and simple thoughts , their native feeling , their airy mirth , for little cause or none , their grief , soon roused and soon allayed . Their influence on us is at least reciprocal with ours on them . When our infancy is almost forgotten , and our boyhood long departed , though it seems but as yesterday ; when life settles darkly down upon us , and we doubt whether to call ourselves young any more , then it is good to steal away from the society of bearded men , and even of gentler woman , and spend an hour or two with children . After drinking from those fountains of still fresh existence , we shall return into the crowd , as I do now , to struggle onward and do our part in life , perhaps as fervently as ever , but , for a time , with a kinder and purer heart , and a spirit more lightly wise . There is snow in yonder cold gray sky of the morning ! - and , through the partially frosted window-panes , I love to watch the gradual beginning of the storm . A few feathery flakes are scattered widely through the air , and hover downward with uncertain flight , now almost alighting on the earth , now whirled again aloft into remote regions of the atmosphere . These are not the big flakes , heavy with moisture , which melt as they touch the ground , and are portentous of a soaking rain . It is to be , in good earnest , a wintry storm . The two or three people , visible on the side-walks , have an aspect of endurance , a blue-nosed , frosty fortitude , which is evidently assumed in anticipation of a comfortless and blustering day . By nightfall , or at least before the sun sheds another glimmering smile upon us , the street and our little garden will be heaped with mountain snow-drifts . The soil , already frozen for weeks past , is prepared to sustain whatever burden may be laid upon it ; and , to a northern eye , the landscape will lose its melancholy bleakness and acquire a beauty of its own , when Mother Earth , like her children , shall have put on the fleecy garb of her winter 's wear . The cloud-spirits are slowly weaving her white mantle . As yet , indeed , there is barely a rime like hoarfrost over the brown surface of the street ; the withered green of the grass-plat is still discernible ; and the slated roofs of the houses do but begin to look gray , instead of black . All the snow that has yet fallen within the circumference of my view , were it heaped up together , would hardly equal the hillock of a grave . Thus gradually , by silent and stealthy influences , are great changes wrought . These little snow-particles , which the storm-spirit flings by handfuls through the air , will bury the great earth under their accumulated mass , nor permit her to behold her sister sky again for dreary months . We , likewise , shall lose sight of our mother 's familiar visage , and must content ourselves with looking heavenward the oftener .
Now , leaving the storm to do his appointed office , let us sit down , pen in hand , XXXXX our fireside .
as by in like of on though through to with