noon
My poor father , with what true and unostentatious philosophy thou didst accommodate thyself to the greatest change thy quiet , harmless life had known since it had passed out of the brief , burning cycle of the passions ! Lost was the home endeared to thee by so many noiseless victories of the mind , so many mute histories of the heart ; for only the scholar knoweth how deep a charm lies in monotony , in the old associations , the old ways and habitual clockwork of peaceful time . Yet the home may be replaced , -- thy heart built its home round itself everywhere , -- and the old Tower might supply the loss of the brick house , and the walk by the stewpond become as dear as the haunts by the sunny peach-wall . But what shall replace to thee the bright dream of thine innocent ambition , -- that angel-wing which had glittered across thy manhood , in the hour between its noon and its setting ? What replace to thee the Magnum Opus -- the Great Book ! -- fair and broad-spreading tree , lone amidst the sameness of the landscape , now plucked up by the roots ? The oxygen was subtracted from the air of thy life .