Youth is the period of frankness and of zeal, when the young heart,
buoyant with hope and cheering prospects, fills with joy, and expands
in all the brightness of fancy's variety. The ambition, lures, and
conflicting interests of the world, have as yet made no inroad upon the
mind; the bosom is a stranger to misery, the tongue to deceit, the eye
glows with all the luxuriance of pleasure, and the whole countenance
presents an animated picture of health and intelligence illumined with
delight. The playfulness or incaution of youth may demand correction, or
produce momentary pain; but the tears of
~23~~
infancy fall like the summer dew upon the verdant slope, which the first
gleam of the returning sun kisses away, and leaves the face of nature
tinged with a blush of exquisite brilliancy, but with no trace of
the sparkling moisture which lately veiled its beauty. This is the
glittering period of life, when the gay perspective of the future seems
clothed in every attractive hue, and the objects of this world assume a
grace divine: then it is that happiness, borne on the wings of innocence
and light-hearted mirth, attends our every step, and seems to wait
obedient to our will.
What a painful reverse may not the retrospective view afford! how unlike
is the finished picture to the inspiring sketch.
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