e, nebulous, drifting nature, though it has endured
through many periods of youth, maturity, and age, has yet had its own
transformations. Its gay, wonderful childhood gave way, as cycle after
cycle coiled itself into slumber, to more definite purposes, and now it
is old and burdened with experiences. It is not an age that quenches its
fire, but it will not renew again the activities which gave it wisdom.
And so it comes that men pause with a feeling which they translate into
weariness of life before the accustomed joys and purposes of their race.
They wonder at the spell which induced their fathers to plot and execute
deeds which seem to them to have no more meaning than a whirl of dust.
But their fathers had this weariness also and concealed it from each
other in fear, for it meant the laying aside of the sceptre, the
toppling over of empires, the chilling of the household warmth, and all
for a voice whose inner significance revealed itself but to one or two
among myriads.

The spirit has hardly emerged from the childhood with which nature
clothes it afresh at every new birth, when the disparity between the
garment and the wearer becomes manifest: the little tissue of joys
and dreams woven about it is found inadequate for shelter: it trembles
exposed to the winds blowing out of the unknown. We linger at twilight
with some companion, still glad, contented, and in tune with the nature
which fills the orchards with blossom and sprays the hedges with dewy
blooms. The laughing lips give utterance to wishes--ours until
that moment. Then the spirit, without warning, suddenly falls into
immeasurable age: a sphinx-like face looks at us: our lips answer, but
far from the region of elemental being we inhabit, they syllable in
shadowy sound, out of old usage, the response, speaking of a love and a
hope which we know have vanished from us for evermore. So hour by hour
the scourge of the infinite drives us out of every nook and corner of
life we find pleasant. And this always takes place when all is fashioned
to our liking: then into our dream strides the wielder of the lightning:
we get glimpses of a world beyond us thronged with mighty, exultant
beings: our own deeds become infinitesimal to us: the colors of our
imagination, once so shining, grow pale as the living lights of God glow
upon them. We find a little honey in the heart which we make sweeter for
some one, and then another Lover, whose forms are legion, sighs to us
out o