friend?--I did not wish to refuse them; but in my heart of hearts, I made
a vow to devote life, knowledge, and power, all of which, in as much as
they were of any value, he had bestowed on me--all, all my capacities and
hopes, to him alone I would devote.

Thus I promised myself, as I journied towards my destination with roused
and ardent expectation: expectation of the fulfilment of all that in
boyhood we promise ourselves of power and enjoyment in maturity. Methought
the time was now arrived, when, childish occupations laid aside, I should
enter into life. Even in the Elysian fields, Virgil describes the souls of
the happy as eager to drink of the wave which was to restore them to this
mortal coil. The young are seldom in Elysium, for their desires,
outstripping possibility, leave them as poor as a moneyless debtor. We are
told by the wisest philosophers of the dangers of the world, the deceits of
men, and the treason of our own hearts: but not the less fearlessly does
each put off his frail bark from the port, spread the sail, and strain his
oar, to attain the multitudinous streams of the sea of life. How few in
youth's prime, moor their vessels on the "golden sands," and collect the
painted shells that strew them. But all at close of day, with riven planks
and rent canvas make for shore, and are either wrecked ere they reach it,
or find some wave-beaten haven, some desart strand, whereon to cast
themselves and die unmourned.

A truce to philosophy!--Life is before me, and I rush into possession.
Hope, glory, love, and blameless ambition are my guides, and my soul knows
no dread. What has been, though sweet, is gone; the present is good only
because it is about to change, and the to come is all my own. Do I fear,
that my heart palpitates? high aspirations cause the flow of my blood; my
eyes seem to penetrate the cloudy midnight of time, and to discern within
the depths of its darkness, the fruition of all my soul desires.