of the heart—­and usually in both—­he reaches a level to which they do not attain; so he gladly avoids having anything more to do with them.  For it may be said, in general, that every man will love or hate solitude—­in other Words, his own society—­just in proportion as he is worth anything in himself.  Kant has some remarks upon this kind of misanthropy in his Critique of the Faculty of Judgment.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Kritik der Urtheilskraft, Part I, Sec.29, Note ad fin.]

In a young man, it is a bad sign, as well from an intellectual as from a moral point of view, if he is precocious in understanding the ways of the world, and in adapting himself to its pursuits; if he at once knows how to deal with men, and enters upon life, as it were, fully prepared.  It argues a vulgar nature.  On the other hand, to be surprised and astonished at the way people act, and to be clumsy and cross-grained in having to do with them, indicates a character of the nobler sort.

The cheerfulness and vivacity of youth are partly due to the fact that, when we are ascending the hill of life, death is not visible:  it lies down at the bottom of the other side.  But once we have crossed the top of the hill, death comes in view—­death—­which, until then, was known to us only by hearsay.  This makes our spirits droop, for at the same time we begin to feel that our vital powers are on the ebb.  A grave seriousness now takes the place of that early extravagance of spirit; and the change is noticeable even in the expression of a man’s face.  As long as we are young, people may tell us what they please! we look upon life as endless and use our time recklessly; but the older we become, the more we practice economy.  For towards the close of life, every day we live gives us the same kind of sensation as the criminal experiences at every step on his way to be tried.

From the standpoint of youth, life seems to stretch away into an endless future; from the standpoint of old age, to go back but a little way into the past; so that, at the beginning, life presents us with a picture in which the objects appear a great way off, as though we had reversed our telescope; while in the end everything seems so close.  To see how short life is, a man must have grown old, that is to say, he must have lived long.

On the other hand, as the years increase, things look smaller, one and all; and Life, which had so firm and stable a base in the days of our youth, now seems nothing but a rapid flight of moments, every one of them illusory:  we have come to see that the whole world is vanity!

Time itself seems to go at a much slower pace when we are young; so that not only is the first quarter of life the happiest, it is also the longest of all; it leaves more memories behind it.  If a man were put to it, he could tell you more out of the first quarter of his life than out of two of the remaining periods.  Nay, in the spring of life, as in the spring of the year, the days reach a length that is positively tiresome; but in the autumn, whether of the year or of life, though they are short, they are more genial and uniform.