"Plus d'amour; partant plus de joie."
How hard it is to grow old, when we have missed our life, when we have
neither the crown of completed manhood nor of fatherhood! How sad it is
to feel the mind declining before it has done its work, and the body
growing weaker before it has seen itself renewed in those who might
close our eyes and honor our name! The tragic solemnity of existence
strikes us with terrible force, on that morning when we wake to find the
mournful word _too late_ ringing in our ears! "Too late, the sand is
turned, the hour is past! Thy harvest is unreaped--too late! Thou hast
been dreaming, forgetting, sleeping--so much the worse! Every man
rewards or punishes himself. To whom or of whom wouldst thou
complain?"--Alas!
April 21, 1865. (_Mornex_).--A morning of intoxicating beauty, fresh as
the feelings of sixteen, and crowned with flowers like a bride. The
poetry of youth, of innocence, and of love, overflowed my soul. Even to
the light mist hovering over the bosom of the plain--image of that
tender modesty which veils the features and shrouds in mystery the
inmost thoughts of the maiden--everything that I saw delighted my eyes
and spoke to my imagination. It was a sacred, a nuptial day! and the
matin bells ringing in some distant village harmonized marvelously with
the hymn of nature.
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