When the youthful fire of your imagination
shall once have vanished, when you shall have perceived the universal
selfishness, idleness, and horror of work, when you yourselves shall
once rightly have tasted the sweetness of plodding on in the customary
rut--then the desire to be better and wiser than all others will soon
fade away. They do not by any chance entertain these good expectations
of you in imagination alone; they have found them confirmed in their
own persons. They must confess that in the days of their foolish youth
they dreamed of improving the world, exactly as you dream today; yet
with increasing maturity they have become tame and quiet as you see
them now. I believe them; in my own experience, which has not been
very protracted, I have seen that young men who at first roused
different hopes nevertheless, later, exactly fulfilled the kind
expectations of mature age. Do this no longer, young men, for how else
could a better generation ever begin? The bloom of youth will indeed
fall from you, and the flame of imagination will cease to be nourished
from itself; but feed this flame and brighten it through clear
thought, make this way of thinking your own, and as an additional gift
you will gain character, the fairest adornment of man. Through this
clear thinking you will preserve the fountain of eternal youth;
however your bodies grow old or your knees become feeble, your spirit
will be reborn in freshness ever renewed, and your character will
stand firm and unchangeable.
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