Literary Cadet, And Saturday Evening Bulletin

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There is no trait, perhaps, more common, or more amiable in the human character, than the attachment which each individual feels for his native place—with what resistless, tender and soul-subduing influence does the remembrance of past scenes and pleasures frequently rush upon our mind? Our native hills and valleys, the murmuring rills, the groves, the meadows and the fields which witnessed the innocence and sportings of our youthful years, arise before the imagination arrayed in all their beauty. We, lonely, look back with tender affection to the sacred spot where repose the slumbering ashes of our departed kindred and friends. In this chaste and pious meditation, we feel a pleasurable melancholy steal over our souls which we would not exchange for all the sparkling joys of transient and unsubstantial amusements. But awakening from this pleasing reverie, we find that we are in a distant land surrounded with strangers. In vain do we look around for the friends and companions of our youth—but all is sad, lonely and disconsolate. Tell us not that the gales which fan us are perfumed with odours; that the gentle zephyr brings health and balm on its wings; that roses and jessamines fill the soft air with fragrance, and that the verdant mantle of nature is spangled with flowers of the richest dyes. For neither the spicy gales, the balmy breath of the gentle zephyr, nor the roses, nor the jessamines, nor nature's fairest livery, equal the air, the beauty and enchantment of our native land. To us the whispers of parental love, tenderness and affection, would be more grateful and soothing than the gentle fannings of the south wind, or the spicy breeze. To us more pleasing would be the sight of our parental mansion, though hung with icicles, and surrounded with the desolate emblems of winter, than the beauty and verdure attached to a distant land.