And then one remembered, with a
curious sense of wistful pain, how rapidly the cards of life were
being dealt out to one, and how long it was since one had played
the card of youth so heedlessly and joyfully away; that at least
could not return. And then there came the thought of all the hope
and love that centred upon these children, and all the
possibilities which lay before them. And I began to think of my own
contemporaries and of how little on the whole they had done; it was
not fair perhaps to say that most of them had made a mess of their
lives, because they were honest, honourable citizens many of them.
It was not the poor thing called success that I was thinking of,
but a sort of high-hearted and generous dealing with life, making
the most of one's faculties and qualities, diffusing a glow of love
and enthusiasm and brave zest about one--how few of us had done
that! We had grown indolent and money-loving and commonplace. Some
of those we looked to to redeem and glorify the world had failed
most miserably, through unchecked faults of temperament.
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