clrudgerj^ which has befallen him, over visions of
departed promise that rose so flush in his youth-
ful manhood, now all fled, leaving him but the one
hope of final rest. So time slowly drags along,
while fortune flits before. Talk to the unfortu-
nate of bearing up, of the folly of despair, of the
greater difficulties conquered by the heroic struggles
of others, and he will point you to years of unrequited
toil, to the bright yellow ignis fatuus that ever eludes
his grasp, to the many times when undismayed he rose
after a fall, and applied himself with new energy to
new tasks, until bruised in heart and bleeding he can
rise no more. He asks not your sympathy ; for his
failure he makes no defence; he will never return to
his friends humiliated; leave him alone to diel
It is sad to see dead hope entombed in a sound body, to see the vigorous mind cramped as in a cruel prison-house, and the guide of young manhood brought low. To him who was thrown upon himself in youth, and accustomed to the rough cares of life, it makes little difference where or how his lot is cast. If he cannot be cook he can be scullion, line his stomach with satisfying kitchen grease and be happy. But with those who have been carefully guarded in their 3^outh it is not so. Crush the enthusiasm in an am- bitious sensitive heart, put out the fire that drives the machinery, and you ma^y bury what is left. Work is not the well-bred young man's misfortune; with an object he will work his fingers to the bone, he will work his brain until the veins on his hot forehead swell almost to bursting; he will leave behind him dead half a score of your mechanical drudges at work. Poverty is not his misfortune; to be well housed, well fed, and well clothed are trifles to him who has a purpose in hand. His misfortune is to have his intuitions stifled, his talents choked, his mind withered for want of development ; this it is that makes him sour and misanthropic, all worth living for, growth, development, culture, an intellectual life,
