The other day, looking at a friend’s child, a little girl of six, I said to him, half laughing, “Who knows?”

“Isn’t there rather too much disparity of age?” he answered.

I was silent, half-startled; then, counting up the years on my fingers, I murmured sadly, “Yes.”

At nineteen I could say of any little maid I met, that one day she might become my wife; the rising generation belonged to me; but now there is a part of humanity for which I am already too old!

And the future—­once an undefined bright background, on which fancy sketched all that was fairest and most desirable, without one warning from the voice of reason:  now, clearly outlined and distinctly colored, it takes such precise shape that I can almost guess what it is to be, can see my path traced out for me, and the goal to which it leads.  And so, marvels and glories, farewell!

And mankind?  Well—­I never was mistrustful, nor inclined to see the bad rather than the good in human nature; indeed, I have a friend who is so exasperated by my persistent optimism that, when I enlarge upon my affection for my kind, he invariably answers, “Wait till your turn comes!”

And yet, how much is gone already of the naif abandonment of those boyish friendships, of that candid and ready admiration that, like a well-adjusted spring, leapt forth at a touch, even when I heard a stranger praised!  Two or three disillusionments have sufficed to weaken that spring.  Already I begin to question my own enthusiasm, and a rising doubt silences the warm, frank words of affection that once leapt involuntarily to my lips.  I read with dry eyes many a book that I used to cry over; when I read poetry my voice trembles less often than it did; my laugh is no longer the sonorous irresistible peal that once echoed through every corner of the house.  When I look in the glass—­is it fancy or reality?—­I perceive in my face something that was not there six years ago, an indescribable look about the eyes, the brow, the mouth, that is imperceptible to others, but that I see and am troubled by.  And I remember Leopardi’s words, at twenty-five the Flower of youth begins to fade.  What?  Am I beginning to fade?  Am I on the downward slope?  Have I travelled so far already?  Why, thousands younger than I have graduated since my day from the college of Modena; I feel them pressing upon me, treading me down, urging me forward.  The thought terrifies me.  Stop a moment—­let me draw breath; why must one devour life at this rate?  I mean to take my stand here, motionless, firm as a rock; back with you!  But the ground is sloping and slippery, my feet slide, there is nothing to catch hold of.  Comrades, friends of my youth, come, let us hold fast to each other; let us clasp each other tight; don’t let them overthrow us; let us stand fast!  Ah, curse it, I feel the earth slipping away under me!