Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees. It is a matter of the will, quality of the imagination, vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.
Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years.We grow old by deserting our ideals.
Whether 60 0r 16, there is in every human being's heart the unfailing child like appetite of what's next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station, so long as it receives message of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long are you young.
When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at 80.
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house.
The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man's abode ; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. May be they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving.
Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it often happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means. Which should be more disreputable? Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends, turn the old, return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life.
They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail drivens into the body on the cross of life. The strange thing is that each one who has gone through that bitter disillusionment add to it in his turn,, unconsciously, by the power within him which is stronger than himself.
My grandfather took me to the fish pond on the farm when I was about seven, and he told me to throw a stone into the water. He told me to watch the circles created by the stone. Then he asked me to think of myself as that stone.
"You may create lots of splashes in your life, but the waves that come from those splashes will disturb the peace of all your fellow creatures," he said. "Remember that you are responsible for what you put in your circle and that circle will also touch many other circles."
"You will need to live in a way that allows the good that comes from your circle to send the peace of that goodness to others. The splash that comes from anger or jealousy will send those feelings to other circles. You are responsible for both."
That was the first time I realized that each person creates the inner peace or discord that flows out into the world. We cannot create world peace if we are riddled with inner conflict, hatred, doubt, or anger.
We radiate the feelings and thoughts that we hold inside, whether we speak them or not. Whatever is splashing around inside of us is spilling out into the world,creating beauty or discord with all other circles of life.
I was up the next morning before the October sunrise,and away though the wild and the woodland. The rising of the sun was noble in the cold and warmth of it; peeping down the spread of light, he raised his shoulder heavily over the edge of grey mountain and wavering length of upland. Beneath his gaze the dew-fogs dipped, and crept to the hollow places; then stole away in line and column,holding skirts, and clinging subtly at the sheltering comers where rock hung over grassland, while the brave lines of the hills came forth, one beyond other gliding .
The woods arose in folds, like drapery of awakened mountains, stately with a depth of awe, and memory of the tempests Autumn's mellow hand was upon them, as they owned already, touched with gold and fed and olive, and their joy towards the sun was less to a bridegroom than a father.
Yet before the floating impress of the woods could clear itself, suddenly the gladsome light leaped over hill and valley, casting amber, blue, and purple, and a tint of rich red rose; according to the scene they lit on, and the curtain flung around; yet all alike dispelling fear and the cloven hoof of darkness, all on the wings of hope advancing,and proclaiming, "God is here!" then life and joy sprang reassured from every crouching hollow; every flower, and bud and bird had a fluttering sense of them; and all the flashing of God's gaze merged into soft beneficence
So, perhaps, shall break upon us that eternal morning,when crag and chasm shall be no more, neither hill and valley, nor great unvintaged ocean; but all things shall arise,and shine in the light of the Father's countenance, because itself is risen.