Perhaps, too, they taught
me to overvalue an outward experience at the expense of inward
growth; but all this I did not appreciate till later.
'It will be seen that my youth was not unfriended, since those
great minds came to me in kindness. A moment of action in
one's self, however, is worth an age of apprehension through
others; not that our deeds are better, but that they produce
a renewal of our being. I have had more productive moments and
of deeper joy, but never hours of more tranquil pleasure than
those in which these demi-gods visited me,--and with a smile
so familiar, that I imagined the world to be full of such.
They did me good, for by them a standard was early given
of sight and thought, from which I could never go back, and
beneath which I cannot suffer patiently my own life or that of
any friend to fall. They did me harm, too, for the child
fed with meat instead of milk becomes too soon mature.
Expectations and desires were thus early raised, after which I
must long toil before they can be realized. How poor the scene
around, how tame one's own existence, how meagre and faint
every power, with these beings in my mind! Often I must cast
them quite aside in order to grow in my small way, and not
sink into despair.
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