" Foolish, unprophetic women! Let but twenty years go by, and how
glad you will be of that rejected lover; for, though a son may suffice
for his mother, what mother has ever sufficed for her son?
But though sometimes, as they looked at their parents, the young
Mesuriers caught a glimpse of the infinite sadness of a life-work
accomplished, yet it failed to warn them against the eager haste with
which they were hurrying on towards a like conclusion. Too late they
would understand that all the joy was in the doing; too soon say to
themselves: "Was it for this that our little world shook with such fiery
commotion and molten ardours, that this present should be so firm and
insensitive beneath our feet? This habit--why, it was once a passion!
This fact--why, it was once a dream!"
Oh, why shake off youth's fragile blossoms with the very speed of your
own impatience! Why make such haste towards autumn! Who ever thought the
ruddiest lapful of apples a fair exchange for a cloud of sunlit blossom?
Whose maturity, however laden with prosperity or gilded with honour,
ever kept the fairy promise of his youth? For so brief a space youth
glitters like a dewdrop on the tree of life, glitters and is gone.
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