It is the food of experience, the soil of wisdom.

It may be the friend or the enemy of youth; and Time will sit beside the old as a consoler or as a tormentor, according as it has been used or misused, and the past life has been well or ill spent.
"Time," says George Herbert, "is the rider that breaks youth." To the young, how bright the new world looks!--how full of novelty, of enjoyment, of pleasure! But as years pass, we find the world to be a place of sorrow as well as of joy.

As we proceed through life, many dark vistas open upon us--of toil, suffering, difficulty, perhaps misfortune and failure.

Happy they who can pass through and amidst such trials with a firm mind and pure heart, encountering trials with cheerfulness, and standing erect beneath even the heaviest burden! A little youthful ardour is a great help in life, and is useful as an energetic motive power.

It is gradually cooled down by Time, no matter how glowing it has been, while it is trained and subdued by experience.
But it is a healthy and hopeful indication of character,--to be encouraged in a right direction, and not to be sneered down and repressed.