no cares beyond his needs;
all space to him is what he can fill, all time his instant of action.
He does not know where he came from, what he is, why here, whither
bound; nor does he ask.

My heart aches helplessly for him when he shall have become a man and
have grown less wise: when he shall find it necessary to act for
himself and shall yet be troubled by what his companions may think;
when he shall no longer live within the fortress of the vital, but take
up his wandering abode with the husks and swine; when he shall no
longer let the world pass by him with heed only as there is need, but
weary himself to better the unchangeable; when space shall not be some
quiet nook of the world large enough for the cradle of his life, but
the illimitable void filled with floating spheres, out upon the myriads
of which, with his poor, puzzled, human eyes, he will pitifully gaze;
when time shall not be his instant of action, but two eternities, past
and future, along the baffling walls of which he will lead his groping
faith; and when the questioning of his stoutest years shall be: Whence
came I? And what am I? Why here for a little while? Where to be
hereafter? A swimmer is drowned by a wave originating in the moon; a
traveller is struck down by a bolt originating in a cloud; a workman is
overcome by the heat originating in the sun; and so, perhaps, the end
will come to him through his solitary struggle with the great powers of
the universe that perpetually reach him, but remain forever beyond his
reach. If I could put forth one protecting prayer that would cover all
his years, it would be that through life he continue as wise as the day
he was born.

The third of June once more. Rain fell all yesterday, all last night.
This morning earth and sky are dark and chill. The plants are bowed
down, and no wind releases them from their burden of large white drops.
About the yard the red-rose bushes fall away from the fences, the
lilacs stand with their purple clusters hanging down as heavily as
clusters of purple grapes. I hear the young orioles calling drearily
from wet nests under dripping boughs. A plaintive piping of lost
little chickens comes from the long grass.

How unlike the day is to the third of June two years ago. I was in the
strawberry bed that crystalline morning; Georgiana came to the window,
and I beheld her for the first time. How unlike the same day one year
back. Again I was in the strawberry bed, ag