Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

Crabbed Age and Youth 99
or hawthorn in May ; and here is another
young man adding his vote to those of pre-
vious generations and rivetting another link
to the chain of testimony. It is as natural
and as right for a young man to be imprudent
and exaggerated, to live in swoops and circles,
and beat about his cage like any other wild
thing newly captured, as it is for old men to
turn gray, or mothers to love their offspring,
or heroes to die for something worthier than
their lives.
By way of an apologue for the aged, when
they feel more than usually tempted to offer
their advice, let me recommend the following
little tale. A child who had been remark-
ably fond of toys (and in particular of lead
soldiers) found himself growing to the level
of acknowledged boyhood without any abate-
ment of this childish taste. He was thirteen ;
already he had been taunted for dallying
overlong about the playbox ; he had to blush
if he was found among his lead soldiers ; the
shades of the prison-house were closing about
him with a vengeance. There is nothing