Life and Literature

Chapter 153

Thy yesterday is past, Thy to-day, thy future, Thy to-morrow, is a secret.

--_From The Talmud._

2124

Speak gently to the young, for they Will have enough to bear-- Pa.s.s through this life as best they may, "Tis full of anxious care.

--_Geo. W. Hangford._

2125

YOUTH.

How beautiful is youth! How bright it gleams With its illusions, aspirations, dreams!

Book of beginnings, story without end, Each maid a heroine, and each man a friend!

All possibilities are in its hands: No danger daunts it, and no foe withstands: In its sublime audacity of faith, "Be thou removed!" it, to the mountain, saith.

2126

An easy youth, generally means a hard old age.

2127

YOUTH AND AGE.

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth.

--_Cicero._

2128

Youth is ever apt to judge in haste, And lose the medium in the wild extreme.

--_Aaron Hill._

2129

YOUTH.

Happy the youth that finds the bride Whose birth is to his own allied, The sweetest joy of life: But oh, the crowds of wretched souls Fetter"d to minds of different moulds And chain"d t" eternal strife!

--_Dr. Isaac Watts._

2130

In youth we feel richer for every new illusion; in maturer years, for every one we lose.

2131

What is youth?--a dancing billow, Winds behind, and rocks before!

--_Wordsworth._

2132

You youngsters nowadays think you"re to begin with living well, and working easy: you"ve no notion of running afoot before you get on horseback.

2133

Heavy work in youth is sweet repose in old age.

--_From the Italian._

Z

2134

_Excessive Zeal._--An Indian, having heard from a white man some strictures on zeal, replied--"I don"t know about having too much zeal; but I think it is better the pot should _boil over than_ not boil at all."

--_Macleod._