In my inmost heart I had no feeling of selfishness mingled with the consideration.

It was from no sense of my own merits, no calculation of my own chances of success, that I thought thus.

Fortunately, at eighteen one's heart is uncontaminated with such an alloy of vanity.

The first emotions of youth are pure and holy things, tempering our fiercer passions, and calming the rude effervescence of our boyish spirit; and when we strive to please, and hope to win affection, we insensibly fashion ourselves to nobler and higher thoughts, catching from the source of our devotion a portion of that charm that idealizes daily life, and makes our path in it a glorious and a bright one.
Who would not exchange all the triumph of his later days, the proudest moments of successful ambition, the richest trophies of hard-won daring,--for the short and vivid flash that first shot through his heart and told him he was loved.

It is the opening consciousness of life, the first sense of power that makes of the mere boy a man,--a man in all his daring and his pride; and hence it is that in early life we feel ever prone to indulge those fancied attachments which elevate and raise us in our own esteem.