I sometimes see them suffering
acutely from shyness before my eyes. But a young man who can bring
himself to ask a perfectly simple question about some small matter
of common interest is comparatively rare; and yet it is generally
the simplest way out of the difficulty.
IX
FEARS OF MIDDLE AGE
Now with all the tremors, reactions, glooms, shadows, and despairs
of youth--it is easy enough to forget them, but they were there--
goes a power of lifting and lighting up in a moment at a chord of
music, a glance, a word, the song of a bird, the scent of a flower,
a flying sunburst, which fills life up like a cup with bubbling and
sparkling liquor.
"My soul, be patient! Thou shalt find
A little matter mend all this!"
And that is the part of youth which we remember, till on looking
back it seems like a time of wandering with like-hearted comrades
down some sweet-scented avenue of golden sun and green shade. Our
memory plays us beautifully false--splendide mendax--till one wishes
sometimes that old and wise men, retelling the story of their life,
could recall for the comfort of youth some part of its languors and
mischances, its bitter jealousies, its intense and poignant sense of
failure.
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