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CONTENTS. rAOB YOUTH .,..►•. X CHARACTER *.•<«..• 27 COMPANIONS • • 57 i , SUCCESS . « . A • • • • 87 CHRISTIANITY . • • « • • .120 I < HELPS .••»•• t • 160 1 , ■ /J DREADING • I • • • • • 202 i^- > I DREAMS *•«»•••• 257 FAREWELL • • 4 • • • • SQI ! 1 YOUTH. SOME things God gives often: some, He gives only once. The Seasons return again and againi and the flowers change with the months, but youth comes twice to none. While we have it we think little of it, but we never cease to look back to it fondly when it is gone. That we realise its value so poorly while we enjoy it rises from several causes. What we have for an hour or a day is prized in some degree rightly, but we are young for long years together. Then we judge of a thing only by contrast and comparison, and youth is all sunshine. It is only as it fades that the shadows come out and show us what we have lost. One hour of its spirits and health in later life would be priceless, because they are gone; but we spend years radiant with both, and don't know our happiness from never feeling the want of them. We even weary for a future, which we reach only to lament having done so. If the sun rose only once in the year we should know how to value the light ; as it is, we don't think of it. In Lapland all the world flocks to see it again after a six months' eclipse : here, where it rises each day, it finds us asleep. Water in the desert; summer in B .« rouTii, ■}' r winter; licallh in sicknctis; youth in age ; want makes the worth. There is a third cause, besides • wc arc so thought- less. Our minds, like buttertHes, light on many things, but rest on none. Familiarity dulls reflection, as light on water brightens the surface, but hides the depths. We get accustomed to things and never trouble ourselves more about them \ we use, enjoy, or look at, them, mechanically, and without a second thought. Like children, each moment engrosses us, and it is only by an effort we realize either the past . or the future. A little quiet thinking is good for us all. Life, like the landscape, needs to be studied, to be realized in any completeness. It is only by dwelling on details that we slowly master the whole, and know either its faults or beauties aright. Half- an-hour's thought in youth would go far, if used to contrast it with other parts of the picture of life, to make it more sensible of its superlative happiness. I wish to help such a fit of reflection, by setting the heart and head to think, by some hints and re- mindings, which are all that the case allows. I can only suggest what each must follow up, and enlarge, and vary, from his own experience. I can only scatter some seeds which each must water and quicken for himself, for to tell all, would be to live every one's separate life and write it in full. Life, like the fountain of Amnion, overflows only at dawn and early morning. As it gets older it has still pleasures, but they arc sober and staid, tinged YOUTH. it makes thouglit- n many ^flection, lidcs the id never enjoy, or \ second osses us, the past )d for us studied, , only by ne whole, it. Half- f used to )f life, to ness. )y setting and re- s. I can I enlarge, can only d quicken irery one's lows only der it has id, tinged with a darker green or an aiitiinin brown. Spring leaves have a tint we miss in July or October : their freshness and soft transparency pass; the brook sings as it runs ; the river glides quietly, and the sea moans. Poets always paint the Gods young, and half of our heaven is in the thought of our youth return- ing. Everything young is happy ; God gives all nature so many days' grace before its troubles begin. There is a universal morning gladness, before the heat of the day. We spend boyhood and youth in an enchanted world, with fountains of joy scattering rainbows. It is a delight simply to live in those years. '^ As we get older happiness gets daintier, and needs more and more catering, but in our spring- time it laughs and thrives on the poorest fare. Youth is the great alchemist — it and the light, that turns hill tops to amethyst, and the rough earth to gold. It transfigures everything to its own bright- ness, and, like the sun, makes a paviUon of its own beams. It is easy to understand how this comes. The Health we have while we are young gives a charm to existence. The rosy cheek, the light step, the merry laugh, the buoyant energy, the unwearying strength, the Hope that sings over us in the air like Ariel, whatever the road, are all its gifts. We know that wq * Augustine calls youth " flos cetatis," the flower of our days ; Cicero calls it " bona aetas," the blessed time ; and Seneca, *' sDtas optima," the best of life. The Elizabethan writers often {.peak of " the primrose of our youth." ^'^i*j*" b''' ^. '8'* ty4 % fii iiiUnnii |.-t>.^-:'VjJ ■'■>• •Hi; YOUTH. ■V. have a body only by the pleasure and pride it brings -.. doctors are an enigma, and pains and aches belong to ■ another race. Health is to life what light is to the landscape, making even bleakness and barrenness beautiful. The Hope that alone is worthy the name belongs,- only to youth. "Youth is a breeze, 'mid blossoms strayiii;:^; Where Hope clings feeding, like a bee." • If it keep up at all in after years it flies low and heavily, not as it did in the clear morning skies. Men get incredulous, hard to rouse and easily daunted, but youth sees the bright side only, and commits itself at once. It has not been dulled by failures and dis- appointments of any weight, as yet, and is still chasing the rainbow. Imagination only slowly yields to sense and experience, and paints without shadows. It hates calculation, as a mark of faint-heartedness and senility. Prudence grows very slowly, and seldom flowers freely before manhood. Indeed, even then, it blossoms only in patches in any case : there are always some twigs or boughs bare to the last. To go into detail seems waste of time to the young man j he jumps to conclusions and reflects after he has acted. But his splendid sanguineness is, after all, the life of the world ; without it, things would stagnate into a motionless Dead Sea. It is the living force of growth and progress, and is often wiser than caution, It ♦ Coleridge, YOUTIL 5 makes no account of odds, but neither does the soft grass that heaves up the flag-stones. It urges the student to his books, the apprentice in his trade, the clerk ill his office, and takes a thousand shapes to suit every ambition. It lightens poverty, toil, danger, and self-denial, and kindles its day-star all the brighter for darkness round. Youth has always something worth while in view : it faces the sun, and the shadows fall behind, out of sight. It keeps climbing, sure that it sees the top. It is the true Greek fire that no waters can quench. It has a power all its own of summing up in its own favour. If a tithe of its dreams came true, genius would soon be almost a drug ; poets be found in each street ; great discoveries make each day an era; and fortunes leave no one poor. It looks on the world as it is, as a laggard which will not do much till it show it the way. But youthful Hope could do nothing but dream, if it had not Fresh Energy at its command, ready for anything. The toil young men undergo, often ior trifles which they themselves will laugh at, before long, is amazing. They work harder for pleasure, than older men do for gain. In their callings, if they take to them, they go through tasks which, in after years, will be their boast and wonder. It was when he was young that Hercules went through his Twelve Labours. The Student dismisses sleep and trims his lamp, poor foolish lad, till the morning, burning life and his oil together. The very writing he does would be work enough even for the mechanical weariness, 6 YOUTH . but when the mental industry he expends is added, it astounds us. It is the same in every pursuit : at sea, or on shore ; in the warehouse or the workshop ; in war and in peace; in the church and the world; youth bears the strain and carries the flag. Experience may counsel, but youth pulls the oar. It has the dash, the spirit, the vital force : the parts are lively, the senses fresh, and Ambition and Hope clamour, like un- hooded hawks, for flight. It must do something, and the harder the better liked. Older men rest on their laurels, younger men have to gain them, and they will match themselves against anything that they may do so. Body and mind alike turn back from nothing. Youth feels as if it were immortal, and acts in keeping. And if, in the end, strength and spirits do seem, for a time, to fail, the fountain refills in a night's repose. Fatigue rises from sleep fresh as the morning. In those golden years, our powers, like the unwearying wings far out on the ocean, seem never to need or to know a rest. The Freedom froi\i Care in youth is another spray in its garland. No one is ever really contented, or quite clear of something like trouble, but there is a great difference between the troubles of different ages. The boy wishes he were a youth ; the youth, that he were a man : each thinking he has only to be like the other to be happy. But the man looks backward instead of forwa^-^l : his golden age, like that of the Poets, lies in the past. The older we get the more fondly do we /■emember our childhood and youth. YOUTIT. We follow them as they leave us, as the shepherds the angels, fading away into Heaven. A young man knows when his work is done, but older men can't throw off care with their coat. A working man, or a youth on salary, leaves his business behind when his hours are up, and what remains is his own, with none of his master's fears or worries to distract him.-* But the merchant has a double shadow behind him, thai of care, and his own. Cares starve in the light soil of youth : it needs the responsibilities, temptations, and ambitions of manhood to fatten it before the^ spring rank. But they take a thousand forms as the years pass ; they dash at the quiet light of home joys, like moths at lamps ; they perch on the softest easy chair ; they fly round gilded cornices, like bats, and by night they stuff the pillow with tliorns, and glare in between the curtains. The merchant sighs for his clerk's light-heartedness, as much as the clerk for his master's position. Fresh cares come with every fresh gain, and they thrive on losses. Mere living breeds them. Cares for ourselves, cares for others, and cares from others ; cares to invest, cares to meet debts, cares to avoid losses, cares to surmount them ; cares of a new undertaking ; cares of an old one : there is no end of them. Everything has its own, as there- are mites for each forgotten jar in the pantry. They • Elihu Burritt says that there is no time in life in which we have so much real leisure as when working for others. He thinks the apprentice or working man has more chancss of im« provement than those in any other positions. 8 YOUTH. I i come up in clouds on every side, like gnats in a ■i^)^ swamp. But whftt cares has youth ? It may say it has them, and it may feel what it calls by the name, but they are like breath on a miiTor, j?:one while you look at it, and only outside, or, like children's tears, are shaken off by a smile next minute. Its smooth face matches its spirits as the rough skin of men suits theirs. It has no headaches from business anxieties ; no heartaches and bewilderments from its affairs ; it has only to do with other men's bills and taxes, and it needs have nc skeleton locked up in its cupboard. If it be discon- tented it is only because what he has never satisfies any one. With bright Health, and sunny Hope, and fresh Energy, and freedom from Care, to let him use and enjoy them, a young man is master of more, and more his own master, than he ever will be in after years. There is a Generous Warmth and Artless , Enthusiasm about youth, that mightily helps as well as adorns it. It has no faint-hearted doubtings about things or persons, but is whole-souled, either for a creed, a friend, or a pursuit. Faith dies into cold questioning after a time, or into still colder indifference. In middle life we have no such close friends as when we are young \ early companions are dropped and for- gotten, and we hardly make more than acquaintances in their place. The heart grows hard like the hand, and loses its sensibility. As to pursuits, a middle- aged man can seldom be said to pursue anything. YOUTH. He only follows at a serious citizen step, in some path opened when he was fresher. A young man is one with all the world ; an older man gets more and more isolated and reserved. Conflict with the world; changes in others, by death, distance, or time ; changes in ourselves, in position, opinions ; the sedateness of years; the occupation of mind by many ties and engagements ; and, above all, the evil that settles on all of us, like rust on steel, destroy our frankness and natural warmth. The affections gradually get dull and slow, like the body. AVe love a youth ; we respect a man ; and from the same causes : the youth loves, the man can only respect us. Ardour is known only when we are young. Men get cold, distrustful, selfish, pru- dent, grasping, as years grow, unless they fight hard to prevent it. The heat of the heart grows less, like that of the body ; the blood gets thinner and poorer alike in figure as in fact, and it runs sluggishly. In a young man the soul looks through the face, but the rough skin of an older man thickens and clouds into a mask. The child-likeness to the kingdom of Heaven lingers through opening manhood, as the colours on clouds fade only slowly as they drift away from the sun. Each age has its weakness and its strength, but there is often in youth, a truthful ingenuousness, a moral manhood, an unselfishness, and a glow, which are wanting in riper years. Idleness gets the better of some ; vice of others ; and, in still more, the cold air of the world throws their nobler nature into a frozen sleep. Not that youth has all the true worth that we