nce Solomon cried out that all was vanity, that he
had tried every thing, each pleasure, each beauty, and found it very
empty. People, he writes, should be taught by my example; they can not
go beyond me--"What can he do that comes after the king?"

It is very doubtful whether, to an untried or a young man, the warnings
of Solomon, or the outpourings of that griefful prophet whose name now
passes for a lamentation, have done much good. Hope balances caution,
and "springs eternal in the human breast." The old man fails, but the
young constantly fancies he shall succeed. "Solomon," he cries, "did not
know every thing;" but in a few years his own disappointments tell him
how true the king's words are, and he cherishes the experience he has
bought. But experience does not serve him in every case; it has been
said that it is simply like the stern-lights of a ship, which lighten
the path she has passed over, but not that which she is about to
traverse. To know one's self is the hardest lesson we can learn. Few of
us ever realize our true position; few see that they are like Bunyan's
hero in the midst of Vanity Fair, and that all about them are snares,
illusions, painted shows, real troubles, and true miseries, many trials
and few enjoyments.

Perhaps the bitterest feelings in our life are those which we
experience, when boys and girls, at the failures of our friendships and
our loves. We have heard of false friends; we have read of deceit in
books; but we know nothing about it, and we hardly believe what we hear.
Our friend is to be true as steel. He is always to like us, and we him.
He is a second Damon, we a Pythias. We remember the fond old stories of
celebrated friendships; how one shared his fortune, another gave his
life. Our friend is just of that sort; he is noble, true, grand, heroic.
Of course, he is wonderfully generous. We talk of him; he will praise
us. The whole people around, who laugh at the sudden warmth, we regard
as old fogies, who do not understand life half as well as we do. But by
and by our friend vanishes; the image which we thought was gold we find
made of mere clay. We grow melancholy; we are fond of reading Byron's
poetry; the sun is not nearly so bright nor the sky so blue as it used
to be. We sing, with the noble poet--

"My days are in the yellow leaf,
The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
Are mine alone.!"

We cease to believe in friend