*
It had been long his practice to prophesy for his second
son a career of ruin and disgrace. There is an advantage
in this artless parental habit. Doubtless the father is
interested in his son; but doubtless also the prophet grows
to be interested in his prophecies. If the one goes wrong
the others come true.
*
When the old man waggles his head and says, 'Ah, so I
thought when I was your age,' he has proved the youth's
case. Doubtless, whether from growth of experience or
decline of animal heat, he thinks so no longer; but he
thought so while he was young; and all men have thought so
while they were young, since there was dew in the morning
or hawthorn in May; and here is another young man adding
his vote to those of previous generations and riveting
another link to the chain of testimony. It is as natural
and as right for a young man to be imprudent and
exaggerated, to live in swoops and circles, and beat about
his cage like any other wild thing newly captured, as it is
for old men to turn grey, or mothers to love their
offspring, or heroes to die for something worthier
than their lives.
*
Youth is the time to go flashing from one end of the world
to the other both in mind and body; to try the manners of
different nations; to hear the chimes at midnight; to see
sunrise in town and country; to be converted at a revival;
to circumnavigate the metaphysics, write halting verses,
run a mile to see a fire, and wait all day long in the
theatre to applaud HERNANI.
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