40 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



and give hints of coming adolescence, this thought of the future grows 

 into an excitement which, for a time, eats up the whole of life, and 

 bears them along into all manner of strange dreams, and schemes, and 

 wayward imaginings, the reality all the while lying beyond them, 

 but revealing itself in shreds and patches, till they grow into the full 

 consciousness of its serious import, and feel the first pressure of re- 

 sponsibility. 



So life passes phase after phase, and manhood comes by a slow 

 growth, and continues to ripen until we have so grown out of the boy- 

 skin that we can look down upon it, almost doubting that it was ever 

 ours ; until a flood of these boyish memories encircles us and we 

 are once more assured of our beginning in the world and rejoice 

 that we were boys indeed. 



For ourselves, we would be boys ever ; not in orchard-robbing, 

 milk-churning, or pelting at the church clock ; but in freshness of 

 feeling, — in freedom from conventional rules and the coldness of 

 polished hypocrisy, — in hearty fellowship with all we meet, and in the 

 strong hope in the future ; the forward-looking, earnest -striving, 

 hopeful ambition to tear aside the cobwebs of prejudice and falsity, 

 and enter with pride and hilarity into the life that lies before us. Off 

 with your kid gloves, man, and pluck the blackberries ! 



