All that comes into one's mind; one takes life, and
subtracts from it all care and anxiety, all the shadow of failure
and suffering, sees it as it might be, and finds it good. That is
the first element of the charm. And then there comes into the
picture a further and more reflective charm, that which Tennyson
called the passion of the past; the thought that all this beautiful
life is slipping away, even as it forms itself, that one cannot
stay it for an instant, but that the shadow creeps across the dial,
and the church-clock tells the hours of the waning day. It is a
mistake to think that such a sense comes of age and experience; it
is rather the other way, for never is the regretful sense of the
fleeting quality of things realised with greater poignancy than
when one is young. When one grows older one begins to expect a good
deal of dissatisfaction and anxiety to be mingled with it all, one
finds the old Horatian maxim becoming true:
"Vitae summa brevis nos spem vitat inchoare longam,"
and one learns to be grateful for the sunny hour; but when one is
young, one feels so capable of enjoying it all, so impatient of
shadow and rain, that one cannot bear that the sweet wine of life
should be diluted.
Pages:
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317