much higher, more irresistible and less resisted than ever
before; testifying too sadly on what a bottomless volcano, or
universal powder-mine of most inflammable mutinous chaotic
elements, separated from us by a thin earth-rind, Society with
all its arrangements and acquirements everywhere, in the present
epoch, rests! The kind of persons who excite or give signal to
such revolutions--students, young men of letters, advocates,
editors, hot inexperienced enthusiasts, or fierce and justly
bankrupt desperadoes, acting everywhere on the discontent of the
millions and blowing it into flame,--might give rise to
reflections as to the character of our epoch. Never till now did
young men, and almost children, take such a command in human
affairs. A changed time since the word _Senior_ (Seigneur, or
_Elder_) was first devised to signify "lord," or superior;--as in
all languages of men we find it to have been! Not an honorable
document this either, as to the spiritual condition of our epoch.
In times when men love wisdom, the old man will ever be
venerable, and be venerated, and reckoned noble: in times that
love something else than wisdom, and indeed have little or no
wisdom, and see little or none to love, the old man will cease to
be venerated; and looking more closely, also, you will find that
in fact he has ceased to be venerable, and has begun to be
contemptible; a foolish boy still, a boy without the graces,
generosities and opulent strength of young boys. In these days,
what of _lordship_ or leadership is still to be done, the youth
must do it, not the mature or aged man; the mature man, hardened
into sceptical egoism, knows no monition but that of his own
frigid cautious, avarices, mean timidities; and can lead
no-whither towards an object that even seems noble. But to
return.