Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/61

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IN INDIA.
41

many pregnant with sorrow and regret. One feels an indescribable anxiety and impatience to be away, apparently at variance with the domestic ties that bind him to home; one feels like a thriving sapling torn up by the roots and about to undergo the period of transplantation; all the tendrils of his family circle—the twigs of his acquaintance—the buds of affection, and the full blown blossoms of youthful friendship, are dried up and withered; the channels of his kindred associations are contracted, and the very heart seems to labour in passing the vital current through the system. The past is all a dream, the present a chaos of doubts, and hopes, and perplexities—and the future beyond the scope of his comprehension. He feels himself in a state of transition between the past and the future and till he takes root in the land of his adoption, and puts forth new roots, new branches, and new foliage, he will not be himself again. There is a time when the remotest point of our native land beams upon the eye of the absentee with joy and delight, and the more hardships and adversities he has undergone, and the greater the dangers and escapes from the winds and the waves, the rocks and the shoals, he may have encountered on his return, the higher he appreciates the blue headland looming in the distance. But there is also a time when our native shore