We Are Led On, Like Little Children,

We Mortals, Men And Women, Devour Many A Disappointment Between Breakfast And Dinnertime.

That Farewell Kiss Which Resembles Greeting, That Last Glance Of Love Which Becomes The Sharpest Pang Of Sorrow.

Is It Not Rather What We Expect In Men, That They Should Have Numerous Strands Of Experience Lying Side By Side And Never Compare Them With Each Other?

How Is It That The Poets Have Said So Many Fine Things About Our First Love, So Few About Our Later Love? Are Their First Poems Their Best? Or Are Not Those The Best Which Come From Their Fuller Thought, Their Larger Experience, Their Deeper-rooted Affections? The Boy's Flute-like Voice Has Its Own Spring Charm; But The Man Should Yield A Richer, Deeper Music.

The Disappointments Of Life Can Never, Any More Than Its Pleasures, Be Estimated Singly; And The Healthiest And Most Agreeable Of Men Is Exposed To That Coincidence Of Various Vexations, Each Heightening The Effect Of The Other, Which May Produce In Him Something Corresponding To The Spontaneous And Externally Unaccountable Moodiness Of The Morbid And Disagreeable.