forces in music: "male and
female created he them;" and these mighty antagonists do not put forth
their hostilities by repulsion, but by deepest attraction.

As "in to-day already walks to-morrow," so in the past experience of a
youthful life may be seen dimly the future. The collisions with alien
interests or hostile views, of a child, boy, or very young man, so
insulated as each of these is sure to be,--those aspects of opposition
which such a person _can_ occupy, are limited by the exceedingly few and
trivial lines of connexion along which he is able to radiate any
essential influence whatever upon the fortunes or happiness of others.
Circumstances may magnify his importance for the moment; but, after all,
any cable which he carries out upon other vessels is easily slipped upon
a feud arising. Far otherwise is the state of relations connecting an
adult or responsible man with the circles around him as life advances.
The network of these relations is a thousand times more intricate, the
jarring of these intricate relations a thousand times more frequent, and
the vibrations a thousand times harsher which these jarrings diffuse.
This truth is felt beforehand misgivingly and in troubled vision, by a
young man who stands upon the threshold of manhood. One earliest
instinct of fear and horror would darken his spirit if it could be
revealed to itself and self-questioned at the moment of birth: a second
instinct of the sane nature would again pollute that tremulous mirror,
if the moment were as punctually marked as physical birth is marked,
which dismisses him finally upon the tides of absolute self-control. A
dark ocean would seem the total expanse of life from the first: but far
darker and more appalling would seem that interior and second chamber of
the ocean which called him away for ever on the direct accountability of
others. Dreadful would be the morning which should say--"Be thou a human
child incarnate;" but more dreadful the morning which should say--"Bear
thou henceforth the sceptre of thy self-dominion through life, and the
passion of life!" Yes, dreadful would be both: but without a basis of
the dreadful there is no perfect rapture. It is a part through the
sorrow of life, growing out of its events, that this basis of awe and
solemn darkness slowly accumulates. _That_ I have illustrated. But, as
life expands, it is more through the _strife_ which besets us, strife
from conflicting opinions, positions, passions,