The Modern Masters Promise Very Little

Our Feelings Probably Are Not Less Strong At Fifty Than They Were Ten Or Fifteen Years Before; But They Have Changed Their Objects, And Dwell On Far Different Prospects. At Five-and-thirty A Man Thinks Of What His Own Existence Is; When The Maturity Of Age Has Grown Into Its Autumn, He Is Wrapt Up In That Of Others. The Loss Of Wife Or Child Then Becomes More Deplorable, As Being Impossible To Repair; For No Fresh Connection Can Give Us Back The Companion Of Our Earlier Years, Nor A "new-sprung Race" Compensate For That, Whose Career We Hoped To See Run.

If Our Impulses Were Confined To Hunger, Thirst, And Desire, We Might Be Nearly Free; But Now We Are Moved By Every Wind That Blows And A Chance Word Or Scene That That Word May Convey To Us.

Unhappy Man! Do You Share My Maddness? Have You Drunk Also Of The Intoxicating Draught? Hear Me; Let Me Reveal My Tale, And You Will Dash The Cup From Your Lips!

Truly Disappointment Is The Guardian Deity Of Human Life; She Sits At The Threshold Of Unborn Time, And Marshals The Events As They Come Forth.

Our Faults Are Apt To Assume Giant And Exaggerated Forms To Our Eyes In Youth.