Life, in such a case, would be like a year
in which there was no spring. Without a generous seedtime, there
will be an unflowering summer and an unproductive harvest. And
youth is the springtime of life, in which, if there be not a fair
share of enthusiasm, little will be attempted, and still less
done. It also considerably helps the working quality, inspiring
confidence and hope, and carrying one through the dry details of
business and duty with cheerfulness and joy.
"It is the due admixture of romance and reality," said Sir Henry
Lawrence, "that best carries a man through life... The quality of
romance or enthusiasm is to be valued as an energy imparted to the
human mind to prompt and sustain its noblest efforts." Sir Henry
always urged upon young men, not that they should repress
enthusiasm, but sedulously cultivate and direct the feeling, as
one implanted for wise and noble purposes. "When the two
faculties of romance and reality," he said, "are duly blended,
reality pursues a straight rough path to a desirable and
practicable result; while romance beguiles the road by pointing
out its beauties--by bestowing a deep and practical conviction
that, even in this dark and material existence, there may be found
a joy with which a stranger intermeddleth not--a light that
shineth more and more unto the perfect day." (1)
It was characteristic of Joseph Lancaster, when a boy of only
fourteen years of age, after reading 'Clarkson on the Slave
Trade,' to form the resolution of leaving his home and going out
to the West Indies to teach the poor blacks to read the Bible.
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