PRELIMINARY.--Sitting in the seat and looking on the scenes
of youth; calling back its feelings and thinking over its thoughts;
is, we may suppose, seldom pleasing to manhood. Fragments of plans;
wrong but captivating views of life; dead hopes which once lived and
bloomed; vast schemes dwindled like dry leaves; resolutions broken and
re-broken; all covered and lost sight of, under the stream of events
that is perpetually flowing into the memory, will come up, bringing a
smile and a pang; and the youth of TWENTY will stand in living
colors before the man of FORTY.
FORTY. Your face is full of joy, young man; are you thinking
of me?
TWENTY. I am thinking of you, and therefore am I full of joy.
FORTY. I know nothing in me that should give you so much
pleasure to contemplate.
TWENTY. Do you count, then, honor, wealth, benefactions, and
the blessings of your country, as nothing? Do I not see your head
encircled with the garland of praise? Are you not enriched with all
knowledge and adorned with all graces? Is this a small thing? I would
give away ten years of my life, if the space that intervenes between
you and me--Now and Then--might be annihilated this instant!
FORTY. It is perhaps as well that that space cannot be
annihilated or diminished. But could you spare ten years without
feeling the loss? Do you suppose yourself sufficiently armed and
equipped already, for the campaign?
TWENTY. On to the combat! What armor would you have, but a
quick eye, a steady hand, and a courageous heart?
FORTY. By 'a courageous heart,' you probably mean animal
spirits; but they will flag in a little while. Have you thought of
that?
TWENTY. No, Sir, I do not mean animal spirits. I mean a bold,
unshrinking heart, that goes forth to meet the world, and never faints;
one which does not grow weary when it is encompassed with adversity,
but looks, and hopes, and fights on, till it gains its high end. Is not
that armor enough?
FORTY. It is, no doubt; so hard that it can receive and not be
pierced by the darts of the enemy?
TWENTY. There is no need of its being hard. The encounter
is not a battle; it is a joust, a tournament, a passage of arms. And
cannot brothers and friends tilt, and still be brothers and friends?
FORTY. You regard, then, the business of life as the
amusements of a gala-day?
TWENTY. No, Sir! no, Sir! These figures of speech only conceal
and disguise its nature. It is neither a battle nor a play; it is
labor. By the sweat of his brow must man eat his bread.