Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/108

 young hearts, till we longed to stretch out our arms and gather all the toiling men and women and the little children to our breast, and love them all—all. Ah! they were grand days, those deep, full days, when our coming life, like an unseen organ, pealed strange, yearnful music in our ears, and our young blood cried out like a war-horse for the battle. Ah, our pulse beats slow and steady now, and our old joints are rheumatic, and we love our easy chair and pipe, and sneer at boys' enthusiasm. But oh! for one brief moment of that god-like life again.