YOUTH.

7

YOUTH.

A LOVELY being scarcely formed or moulded,
A rose with all its sweetest leaves yet folded.

Byron.

Nine times out of ten it is over the Bridge of Sighs that we pass the narrow gulf from youth to manhood. That interval is usually occupied by an ill-placed or disappointed affection. We recover and find ourselves a new being. The intellect has become hardened by the fire through which it has passed. The mind profits by the wreck of every passion, and we may measure our road to wisdom by the sorrows we have undergone.

Bulwer's “Maltravers."

.

The fresh and buoyant sense of being
That bounds in youth's yet careless breast,
Itself a star not borrowing light,
But in its own glad essence bright.

Moore.

In girls we love what they are; in lads what they promise.

Goethe.

Youth is perpetual intoxication; 'tis the fever of reason.

La Rochefoucauld.

What in our view marks the full development of manhood, and dissevers it totally from the states of boyhood and youth, is a sustained self-mastery. When the energies are not the slaves of excitement; when the fiery impatience of occasional effort has become the perseverant energy of continued work; when the powers are ranged in ordered submission under the will; when the motives are not the faint wavering fatui or meteors of the hour, but the guiding principle of the life is clearly ascertained and resolutely adhered to,—then the boy has passed into the man.

Bayne. .

The clue of our destiny, wander where we will, lies at the cradle foot.

How infinite the wealth of love and hope
Garnered in these same tiny treasure-houses !
Another little wave upon the sea of life,
Another soul to save amid its toil and strife;
Two more little feet to walk the dusty road,
To choose where two paths meet—the narrow and the

broad;
Two more little hands to work for good or ill ;
Two more little eyes, another little will;
Another heart to love, receiving love again ;
And so the baby came, a thing of joy and pain.

The smallest child is nearest to God, as the smallest planets are nearest the sun.

Jean Paul.

A babe in the house is a well-spring of pleasure.

Tupper.

A babe is a mother's anchor.

Beecher.

Did you ever see our baby?—Little Tot,

With her eyes so sparkling bright,

And her skin so lily white,
Lips and cheeks of rosy light. Tell you what,
She is just the sweetest baby in the lot.

Mrs. Gage.

It was a peculiarity of this baby to be always cutting teeth.

Dickens.

Banish the tears of children ; continual rains upon the blossoms are hurtful.

Jean Paul.

The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.

When yet was ever found a mother
Who'd give her booby for another?

Gay.

Then said the mother to her son,

And pointed to his shield :
" Come with it when the battle's done,
Or on it from the field.”

R. Montgomery.

The whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school.

Shakspeare.