YOUTH BREATHES THE DEWY AIR,

and beholds only the roseate tints of the sunrise.  Why should not its heart rejoice?  Says Lord Lytton:  “Let youth cherish the happiest of earthly boons while yet it is at its command; for there cometh a day to all ‘when neither the voice of the lute nor the birds’ shall bring back the sweet slumbers that fall on their young eyes as unbidden as the dews.”  “Youth holds no society with grief,” says old Euripides.  Perhaps, rather, it makes those “formal calls” which have no feeling in them.

THE LITTLE GIRL’S KITTEN DIES,

and the little human heart is inconsolable for half an hour.  In half a day, when asked to tell her greatest grief, she will relate an accident to her doll, forgetting the poor kitten yet waiting for burial!  How could those lips and cheeks retain their delicate tints if the wet seasons of grief set in with tropical intensity?  Lord Lytton, often, in his highly colored writings, cries out “O youth!  O youth!” and there is a world of regret in the exclamation.  “O the joy of young ideas,” sighs Hannah Moore, “painted on the mind, in the warm, glowing colors which fancy spreads on objects not yet known, when all is new and all is lovely!”

SIR WALTER RALEIGH

has justly claimed the respect and admiration of the world for many high qualities of mind.  One of the most admirable of his remarks is an admonition to youth, which runs as follows:  “Use thy youth so that thou mayest have comfort to remember it when it hath forsaken thee, and not sigh and grieve at the account thereof.  Use it as the spring-time which soon departeth, and wherein thou oughtest to plant and sow all provisions for a long and happy life.”  But this is difficult to do.  The march of youth is through a mountainous country.  The scenery is changing, but the progress is not encouraging.  “Self-flattered, unexperienced, high in hope when young,” says the poet Young, “with sanguine cheer and streamers gay, we cut our cable, launch into the world, and fondly dream each wind and star our friend.”  How many youths have believed they would, by merit alone, rise to the Presidency of the United States—­

THE FIRST MAN IN FIFTY MILLIONS!

Youth keeps a diary, into which it pours a volume of “thought” that seems a very mine of gems.  Take up that chronicle at middle age and see its weak and driveling character.  Observe the almost total lack of one idea that will aid you to some honorable end!  And yet there is something touching even in the great trust and confidence of childhood.  How sweet and true are the beautiful lines of Thomas Hood called “I remember, I remember: