Age steals
Upon us like a snowstorm in the night:
How drear life's landscape now!--Henry Guy Carleton.
Whose hand,
Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe.--Shakspeare.
We are intrusted with a few short years, and yet with
more than we deserve. It is our misfortune to value those fleeting
moments only when our stock of them is in danger of utter exhaustion.
When the bright, beautiful days have vanished, and we find that, like
the base Judean's pearl, those days were richer than all our tribe--our
Vanderbilts, our Stanfords, and our Goulds--then we turn, in human
kindness, to our younger associates, and sound our warning in their
ears. According as our earnestness impresses them, they listen or they
hearken not. A golden thought which the young should learn by heart,
would run thus: _However highly I have valued this day, I have "sold it
on a rising market," and too cheaply. It would grow in value as I looked
back upon it, even if I were to live to my eightieth year_. This may not
seem true to you, who wish for Saturday night, that you may receive your
salary,--or to you, who long for Sunday, that you may gaze into a pair
of eyes that have deep beauties for you--but when your mother in your
babyhood, said a certain letter was "A,"