No young man believes he will ever die. It was a saying of my brother 8217;s, and a fine one.
There is a feeling of Eternity in youth, which makes us amend for everything. To be young is to be as one of the Immortal Gods. One half of time indeed is flown — the other half remains in store for us with all its countless treasures, for there is no line drawn, and we see no limit to our hopes and wishes. We make the coming age our own —
The vast, the unbounded prospect lies before us.
Death, old age, are words without a meaning that pass by us like the idea air which we regard not. Others may have undergone, or may still be liable to them — we “bear a charmed life”, which laughs to scorn all such sickly fancies. As in setting out on delightful journey, we strain our eager gaze forward —
Bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail!
And see no end to the landscape, new objects presenting themselves as we advance. So, in the commencement of life, we set no bounds to our inclinations, nor to the unrestricted opportunities of gratifying them. We have as yet found no obstacle, no disposition to flag; and it seems that we can go on so forever. We look round in a new world, full of life, and motion, and ceaseless progress; and feel in ourselves all the vigor and spirit to keep pace with it, and do not foresee from any present symptoms how we shall be left behind in the natural course of things, decline into old age, and drop into the grave. It is the simplicity, and as it were abstractedness of our feelings in youth, that (so to speak) identifies us with nature, and (our experience being slight and our passions strong) deludes us into a belief of being immortal like it. Our short-lives connexion with existence we fondly flatter ourselves is an indissoluble and lasting union — a honeymoon that knows neither coldness, jar, nor separation. As infants smile and sleep, we are rocked in the cradle of our wayward fancies, and lulled into security by the roar of the universe around us — we quaff the cup of life with eager haste without draining it, instead of which it only overflows the more — objects press around us, filling the mind with their magnitude and with the strong of desires that wait upon them, so that we have no room for the thoughts of death.
年轻人不相信自己会死。这是我哥哥的话，可算得一句妙语。青春有一种永生之感——它能弥补一切。人在青年时代好像一尊永生的神明。诚然，生命的一半已经消逝，但蕴藏着不尽财富的另一半还有所保留，我们对它也抱着无穷的希望和幻想。未来的时代完全属于我们——
无限辽阔的远景在我们面前展现。
死亡，老年，不过是空话，毫无意义;我们听了，只当耳边风，全不放在心上。这些事，别人也许经历过，或者可能要承受——但我们自己“冥冥中有神保佑”，对于诸如此类脆弱的念头，统统付之轻蔑的一笑。像是刚刚走上愉快的旅程，极目远眺——