352 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN 



into men and women, with the temptations and trials that 

 life must always bring, we recall our own youth, and a 

 feeling of responsibility, almost of awe, comes over us. 

 Anyone who has gone through the ages would know what 

 I mean. To forgive and excuse the mistakes and faults 

 of life is a very different thing from helping the young 

 out of the strait way. It has been truly said that it is 

 all very well to sneer at commonplace morality in the 

 abstract ; but the moment it is a question of any young 

 people who are dear to us, we cannot help desiring it for 

 them, though we may have laughed at it for ourselves. 

 Then the young think the old uncharitable, narrow- 

 minded, and unkind ; but they are not so. One of the 

 saddest things in life is the isolation of the old. They 

 can partly understand the young, but the young never can 

 understand them, for are they not far away along a road 

 the young have never seen ? 



Strange, is it not, that of the myriads who 

 Before us passed the door of darkness through, 

 Not one returns to tell us of the road, 

 Which, to discover, we must travel too ? 



Omar Khayyam. 



