imitating the antics of youth, strive to persuade themselves
that their day is not yet over; they shout with the lustiest,
but the war cry sounds hollow in their mouth; they are like
poor wantons attempting with pencil, paint and powder, with
shrill gaiety, to recover the illusion of their spring.
The wiser go their way with a decent grace. In their chastened
smile is an indulgent mockery. They remember that they too
trod down a sated generation, with just such clamor and with
just such scorn, and they foresee that these brave torch-bearers
will presently yield their place also. There is no last word.
The new evangel was old when Nineveh reared her greatness
to the sky. These gallant words which seem so novel to those
that speak them were said in accents scarcely changed a hundred
times before. The pendulum swings backwards and forwards.
The circle is ever travelled anew.

Sometimes a man survives a considerable time from an era in
which he had his place into one which is strange to him, and
then the curious are offered one of the most singular
spectacles in the human comedy. Who now, for example, thinks
of George Crabbe? He was a famous poet in his day, and the
world recognised his genius with a unanimity which the greater
complexity of modern life has rendered infrequent. He had
learnt his craft at the school of Alexander Pope, and he wrote
moral stories in rhymed couplets. Then came the French
Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, and the poets sang new songs.
Mr. Crabbe continued to write moral stories in rhymed couplets.
I think he must have read the verse of these young
men who were making so great a stir in the world, and I fancy
he found it poor stuff. Of course, much of it was. But the