The Hour Before the Dawn. iii 



attitude toward death was one of comparative indifference ; 

 continued life offered too little to be very earnestly de- 

 sired. This sentiment concerning death prevails largely 

 to-day in the Orient and among savage tribes. Life is 

 not wholly desirable, often the reverse, it holds so little 

 of real enjoyment, so much of pain, fear and general 

 misery. 



The case of the well-to-do, well-lodged, and happily en- 

 vironed American of our own times is wholly different. 

 Every day may be a pleasure, devoted to fresh achieve- 

 ments. 



The youth of to-day, moreover, has need of vastly more 

 time to realize his expanding ideals. Hitherto it was a 

 hut, food and a wife that formed the sum of a young 

 man's ambitions, the goal toward which his life developed : 

 all obtained during twenty years of youthful effort. The 

 aspirations of men have vastly enlarged. Fifty years 

 scarcely suffices to realize the plans necessary to success 

 in life. Formerly when the pleasures of life most sought 

 were sensory, the realization was not far to seek, and when 

 attained the vital vis viva slackened. But the pleasures 

 most prized by the educated young man of our times re- 

 quire a longer initiative, three or four decades of patient 

 study and sustained exertion. Life and the purposes of 

 life are laid on wider lines for a loftier superstructure — 

 the kind of living that outgrows the brief lifetime of our 

 forebears. 



