Mr. William Finch is certain that the nostalgic feeling of cleaning out an attic is more than
mere nostalgic, but his wife Cora is more down-to-Earth.
Consider an attic. Its very atmosphere is Time. It deals in other years, the cocoons and
chrysalises of another age. All the bureau drawers are little coffins where a thousand
yesterdays lie in state. Oh, the attic’s a dark, friendly place, full of Time, and if
you stand in the very center of it, straight and tall, squinting your eyes, and thinking
and thinking, and smelling the Past, and putting out your hands to feel of Long ago, why,
it
. . .