No young man believes he shall ever die. It was a saying of my brother, and a fine one. There is a feeling of eternity1 in youth, which makes us amend2 for everything. To be young is to be as one of the Immortal3 Gods. One half of time indeed is flown-the other half remains4 in store for us with all its countless5 treasures; for there is no line drawn6, and we see no limit to our hopes and wishes. We make the coming age our own -- The vast, the unbounded prospect7 lies before us Death. Old age are words without a meaning. That pass by us like the idea air which we regard not. Others may have undergone, or may still be liable to them-we bear a charmed life, which laughs to scorn all such sickly fancies.
As in setting out on delightful8 journey, we strain our eager gaze forward- bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail-and see no end to the landscape, new objects presenting themselves as we advance; so, in the commencement of life, we set no bounds to our inclinations9, nor to the unrestricted opportunities of gratifying them. We have as yet found no obstacle, no disposition10 to flag; and it seems that we can go on so forever. We look round in a new world, full of life, and motion, and ceaseless progress; and feel in ourselves all the vigor11 and spirit to keep pace with it, and do not foresee from any present symptoms how we shall be left behind in the natural course of things, decline into old age, and drop into the grave.
It is the simplicity12, and as it were abstractedness of our feelings in youth, that identifies us with nature, and deludes13 us into a belief of being immortal like it. Our short-lives connection with existence we fondly flatter ourselves, is an indissoluble and lasting14 union-a honeymoon15 that knows neither coldness, jar, nor separation. As infants smile and sleep, we are rocked in the cradle of our wayward fancies, and lulled16 into security by the roar of the universe around us. we quaff17 the cup of life with eager haste without draining it, instead of which it only overflows18 the more objects press around us, filling the mind with their magnitude and with the strong of desires that wait upon them, so that we have no room for the thoughts of death.
