urred to me on this
matter, if one could catch and fix the vague glimpses and passing
intuitions of solid unchanging truth, if the subject on which one has
thought long and felt deeply were always that on which one could write
best, and could bring out to the sympathy of others what a man himself
has felt, what an excellent essay this would be! But it will not be so;
for, as I try to grasp the thoughts I would set out, they melt away and
elude me. It is like trying to catch and keep the rainbow hues you have
seen the sunshine cast upon the spray of a waterfall, when you try to
catch the tone, the thoughts, the feelings, the atmosphere of early
youth.

There can be no question at all as to the fact, that clever young men
and women, when their minds begin to open, when they begin to think for
themselves, do pass through a stage of mental development which they
by-and-by quite outgrow, and entertain opinions and beliefs, and
feel emotions, on which afterwards they look back with no sympathy or
approval. This is a fact as certain as that a calf grows into an ox, or
that veal, if spared to grow, will become beef. But no analogy between
the material and the moral must be pushed too far. There are points of
difference between material and moral Veal. A calf knows it is a calf.
It may think itself bigger and wiser than an ox, but it knows it is not
an ox. And if it be a reasonable calf, modest, and free from prejudice,
it is well aware that the joints it will yield after its demise will be
very different from those of the stately and well-consolidated ox which
ruminates in the rich pasture near it. But the human boy often thinks he
is a man, and even more than a man. He fancies that his mental stature
is as big and as solid as it will ever become. He fancies that his
mental productions--the poems and essays he writes, the political
and social views he forms, the moods of feeling with which he regards
things--are just what they may always be, just what they ought always to
be. If spared in this world, and if he be one of those whom years make
wiser, the day comes when he looks back with amazement and shame on
those early mental productions. He discerns now how immature, absurd,
and extravagant they were,--in brief, how Vealy. But at the time, he
had not the least idea that they were so. He had entire confidence in
himself,--not a misgiving as to his own ability and wisdom. You, clever
young student of eighteen years old, when yo