Page:Romance & Reality 3.pdf/97

Rh sorrow, it would also destroy great enjoyment, could we think at the time as we do afterwards. Yet there is a period in the lives of most, when the heart open its leaves, like a flower, to all the gentle influences;—when one beloved step is sweet in its fall beyond all music, and the light of one beloved face is dear as that of heaven;—when the thoughts are turned to poetry, and a fairy charm is thrown over life's most ordinary occurrences; Hope, that gentlest astrologer, foretelling a future she herself has created;—when the present is coloured by glad yet softened spirits, buoyant, though too tender for mirth. Who shall say that is a selfish feeling which looks in another's eyes to read its own happiness, and holds another's welfare more precious than its own? What path in after-time will ever be so pleasant as that one walk which delayed on its way, and yet ended so soon? What discourse of the wise, the witty, the eloquent, will ever have the fascination of a few simple, even infantile words—or of the still, but delicious silence which they broke? Why does love affect childish expressions of endearment, but because it has all the truth and earnestness of