This revolution of sentiments occasions a
perpetual contest between the old and young. They
who imagine themselves entitled to veneration by
the prerogative of longer life, are inclined to treat
the notions of those whose conduct they superintend
with superciliousness and contempt, for want of
considering that the future and the past have different
appearances; that the disproportion will always be
great between expectation and enjoyment, between
new possession and satiety; that the truth of many
maxims of age gives too little pleasure to be allowed
till it is felt; and that the miseries of life would be
increased beyond all human power of endurance, if
we were to enter the world with the same opinions
as we carry from it.
We naturally indulge those ideas that please us.
Hope will predominate in every mind, till it has
been suppressed by frequent disappointments. The
youth has not yet discovered how many evils are
continually hovering about us, and when he is set
free from the shackles of discipline, looks abroad
into the world with rapture; he sees an elysian
region open before him, so variegated with beauty,
and so stored with pleasure, that his care is rather
to accumulate good, than to shun evil; he stands
distracted by different forms of delight, and has no
other doubt, than which path to follow of those
which all lead equally to the bowers of happiness.
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