that time our world is heroic,
its inhabitants half-divine or semi-demon; its scenes are dream-scenes;
darker woods and stranger hills, brighter skies, more dangerous waters,
sweeter flowers, more tempting fruits, wider plains, drearier deserts,
sunnier fields than are found in nature, overspread our enchanted globe.
What a moon we gaze on before that time! How the trembling of our hearts
at her aspect bears witness to its unutterable beauty! As to our sun, it
is a burning heaven--the world of gods.

At that time, at eighteen, drawing near the confines of illusive, void
dreams, Elf-land lies behind us, the shores of Reality rise in front.
These shores are yet distant; they look so blue, soft, gentle, we long
to reach them. In sunshine we see a greenness beneath the azure, as of
spring meadows; we catch glimpses of silver lines, and imagine the roll
of living waters. Could we but reach this land, we think to hunger and
thirst no more; whereas many a wilderness, and often the flood of death,
or some stream of sorrow as cold and almost as black as death, is to be
crossed ere true bliss can be tasted. Every joy that life gives must be
earned ere it is secured; and how hardly earned, those only know who
have wrestled for great prizes. The heart's blood must gem with red
beads the brow of the combatant, before the wreath of victory rustles
over it.

At eighteen we are not aware of this. Hope, when she smiles on us, and
promises happiness to-morrow, is implicitly believed; Love, when he
comes wandering like a lost angel to our door, is at once admitted,
welcomed, embraced. His quiver is not seen; if his arrows penetrate,
their wound is like a thrill of new life. There are no fears of poison,
none of the barb which no leech's hand can extract. That perilous
passion--an agony ever in some of its phases; with many, an agony
throughout--is believed to be an unqualified good. In short, at eighteen
the school of experience is to be entered, and her humbling, crushing,
grinding, but yet purifying and invigorating lessons are yet to be
learned.

Alas, Experience! No other mentor has so wasted and frozen a face as
yours, none wears a robe so black, none bears a rod so heavy, none with
hand so inexorable draws the novice so sternly to his task, and forces
him with authority so resistless to its acquirement. It is by your
instructions alone that man or woman can ever find a safe track through
life's wilds; without it, how they stumble