Fountain of Youth

“ But the fountain of youth has not been found, and can not be found if it is sought in any particular spot on the earth. Yet it is no fable, no dream-picture; it requires no adept to find it: it streams forth inexhaustible in all living nature. ”

“ But suppose some more fortunate adventurer should discover there, even at the very pole itself, a veritable 'fountain of youth and beauty,' whose rejuvenating waters could restore the elasticity of youth to the frame of age, smoothing away its wrinkles, and imprinting the bloom of childhood upon its cheeks, bringing back the long-lost freshness and buoyancy to the soul ”

“ The poet-historian, Juan de Castellanos, writing in mock heroic style, says that so great were the virtues of the Fountain of Youth, that by means of its waters old women were able to get rid of their wrinkles and gray hairs. “A few draughts of the water and a bath in the restoring fluid sufficed to restore strength to their enfeebled members, give beauty to their features, and impart to a faded complexion the glow of youth. ”

“ In all their excursions they had not met a man or woman who looked to be past middle life. Had they discovered a fountain of youth, which, when bathed in, gave them a long lease on life with health and beauty? ”

“ Last night I went with Judy and Noel to see that enchanting sprite Karsavina. I shall never forget it. As a rule one watches people dance, but last night I danced too. I swear that my spirit left its rheumatic old body and sprang and whirled and darted in the midst of all that color and movement with the music splashing and rippling about it. For a few hours I bathed in the Fountain of Youth—that fountain whose waters, I believe, are made up of music, color, and some 42 other ingredients that man with his slow mind has not yet discovered. ”

“ Somewhere amid those green copses or along those liquid streams, he had been told, a living fountain sprang up clear and sparkling from the earth, its waters of such a marvellous quality that whoever should bathe in them would feel new life coursing through his veins and the vigor of youth bounding along his limbs. ”

“ It was the Fountain of Youth he sought, that fabled fountain of which men had dreamed for centuries, and which was thought to lie somewhere in eastern Asia. Might not its waters upspring in this new land, whose discovery was the great marvel of the age, and which men looked upon as the unknown east of Asia? ”

“ On the pedestal are more flowers in relief, and two dimly indicated half-figures of a man and woman may be discovered. The side panels show old people being drawn away in ships manned by cherubs-old people who gaze back wistfully at the Youth they are leaving. Really the fountain is far more charming if one forgets all but the central figure. There is in that a sweet tenderness, a maidenly loveliness, that makes it the perfect embodiment of Youth-an embodiment to be remembered with delight again and again. ”

“ One may forget all about his enterprise as a navigator and may ignore his claims as a discoverer, but one can never become oblivious of that strange episode with which his name is inseparably connected—the romantic search for the Fountain of Youth.
For the historian, as for the psychologist, the subject possesses an abiding interest, and even the casual visitor to Florida finds himself unconsciously dreaming about the days long gone by when Spaniard and Indian were wandering through forest and everglade in search of the life-giving fountain about which they had heard such marvelous reports. ”

“ I am just now reminded of what we are told in history that a great man, many years ago, left his home in Europe and came across the Atlantic ocean in his own ship to hunt for the fountain of youth that was confidently believed to exist somewhere in the wilds of America. This fountain, it was said, possessed the virtue of imparting youth to the aged, and life and health to the sick and dying. ”

“ But this is not a claim that Man should stay always youthful. Supposing that that famous Spaniard, landing upon Florida's coral strands, had found that mythical Fountain of Youth; what a calamity for mankind! ”

“ The nymph of the fountain came over my memory, with all the associations of fairy footsteps, shady groves, soft echoes, and wild streamlets; but this new passion was produced by a strain of soul-subduing melody, still lingering in my ear, aided by a downy bed, fragrant flowers, and rose-colored curtains. "Unhappy youth!" sighed I to myself, "distracted by such rival passions, and the empire of thy heart thus violently contested by the sound of a voice, and the print of a footstep!" ”

“ The fountain of vision, and fountain of light:
The emerald fields were of dazzling glow,
And the flowers of everlasting blow.
Then deep in the stream her body they laid,
That her youth and beauty never might fade;
And they smiled on heaven, when they saw her lie
In the stream of life that wander’d bye. ”

“ That these glimpses of the bygone season of our youth should be but fitful and passing—tinging, not coloring the landscape of our life—we should be engaged in all the active bustle and turmoil of the world, surrounded by objects of hope, love, and ambition, stemming the strong tide in whose fountain is fortune. ”

“ Perhaps somewhere in the years to come, after much wandering and weariness, guided of God, we may come to that fountain of which the ancients dreamed, and for which the noblest among them sought so long, and died seeking; plunging into which, we shall find our lost youth in its cool depths, and, rising refreshed and strengthened, shall go on our eternal journey re-clothed with the beauty, the innocence, and the happiness of our youth. ”

“ If Ponce De Leon and his companions had mysteriously disappeared when in search of the Fountain of Youth, there would be stories now about rejuvenated Spaniards wandering about the earth, and who would always continue to wander. But the Fountain of Youth is not a desirable water-supply, and a young person who should find such a pool would do well to wait until he had arrived at maturity before entering upon an existence of indefinite continuance. ”

“ In their way, these are the loveliest fountains on the Exposition grounds, though they differ so from all the rest that comparison is not easy. The naive conception of the Fountain of Youth and the realistic strength of that of El Dorado lead visitors back to them again and again. They are hidden fountains, as their prototypes were hidden. Each terminates one of the two open colonnades with a central niche composition flanked on either hand by a sculptured frieze. Each is the work of a woman sculptor, and both, though very different, are far from the conventional or the commonplace. ”

“ So much we can see; darkly, as through the foliage of some wavering thicket: a youth of no common endowment, who has passed happily through Childhood, less happily, yet still vigorously, through Boyhood, now at length perfect in 'dead vocables,' and set down, as he hopes, by the living Fountain, there to superadd Ideas and Capabilities. ”

“ The water is supposed by some to flow from the same source as the Castalian spring, and is extolled by others as uniting the virtues of the Fountain of Youth with those of many other enchanted wells long celebrated in tale and song. ”

“ For assuredly we have sufficient evidence that the intellectual vigour of our youth is such, that come what may they will drink at the forbidden fountain, and rejoice in its healthgiving and refreshing streams. ”

“ Many are the hours I dreamt away as a lad, all alone, at this richly romantic spot. The firs will doubtless come to their rights again, and stifle in chill and darkness these sun-loving intruders; they are already planted. Would I not wait, if I could, to see the fountain as it used to be? ”

“ But from the ugly chasm there burst forth a spring of water which ever afterward flowed a living fountain. From the ugly gashes which misfortunes and sorrows make in our hearts, perennial fountains of rich experience and new joys often spring. ”

“ I have watched you as you frolicked around that fountain,—so many young, bright faces, all looking so happy,—and I said to myself, When the time comes for us to gather around that fountain of living water which is before the throne of God, I wonder if one of these boys and girls will be missing—one of them? Oh, children, I pray God that you may all be there, every one. ”

“ The brooks with their babble, the rivers with their flow, the sun with its radiance, the rainbow with its hues, the stars with their lustre, the mountains with their serenity, the woods with their freshness—all these are testimonies unto Thy self-revealing wisdom. Every fountain is the gleam of Thy joy ”

“ The design of the fountain represents the struggle of life symbolized by a group of figures which is intended to portray, according to Miss Yandell, not the struggle for bare existence, but 'the attempt of the immortal soul within us to free itself from the handicaps and entanglements of its earthly environments. It is the development of character, the triumph of intellectuality and spirituality I have striven to express.' Life is symbolized by the figure of a woman, the soul by an angel, and the earthly tendencies—duty, passion, and avarice—by male figures. ”

“ The vision had the aspect of a fair young girl, with locks of paly gold. A mirthful expression laughed in the eyes and dimpled over the whole shadowy countenance, till it seemed just what a fountain would be, if, while dancing merrily into the sunshine it should assume the shape of woman. Through the dim rosiness of the cheeks I could see the brown leaves, the slimy twigs, the acorns, and the sparkling sand. The solitary sunbeam was diffused among the golden hair, which melted into its faint brightness, and became a glory round that head so beautiful! ”

“ It is, I believe, our only fountain, and all the associations of a fountain are poetical. It carries us to the East, and the stately halls of the caliphs rise on the mind's eye; and we think over the thousand and one stories which made our childhood so happy, and stored up a world of unconscious poetry for our future years: or else it conjures up the graceful old Italian histories of moonlight festivals, when the red wine was cooled, and the lute echoed by the soft sound of falling waters. We leave the world of reality behind us for that of romance. ”

“ What wonder that the untaught children of nature spread the fame of this marvellous fountain to far distant climes, and under the stereoscopic power of time and distance came to regard it as the life-giving stream, whose magic waters washed away the calamities of age and the pains of disease, round whose fortunate shores youths and maidens ever sported, eternally young and eternally joyous! ”

“ There are only boiling fountains and snow-packed ranges and wild-waste places to which neither man nor beast go willingly. Yet an unknown urge pushes one on, that urge which from time immemorial has impelled saint in search of salvation, and age in search of youth, as well as youth in search of adventure, to the most inaccessible reaches of the world. ”

“ We do not have to make it rise any more than the engineer who sinks the bore-pipe for an artesian well has to make the water rise in it; the water does that by its own energy, springing as a fountain a hundred feet into the air. Just so we shall find a fountain of Essence-of-Life ready to spring up in ourselves, inexhaustible and continually increasing in its flow, as One taught long ago to a woman at a wayside well. ”

“ I know not whether some deceitful spirits haunt this spot, or whether it be the warm, celestial fancy in my own heart which makes everything around me seem like paradise. In front of the house is a fountain,—a fountain to which I am bound by a charm like Melusina and her sisters. Descending a gentle slope, you come to an arch, where, some twenty steps lower down, water of the clearest crystal gushes from the marble rock. The narrow wall which encloses it above, the tall trees which encircle the spot, and the coolness of the place itself,—everything imparts a pleasant but sublime impression. ”

“ Little groups of disinterested spectators looked on at the strange spectacle of men of the same college, most of them well known throughout the University for their prowess in different branches of sport, fighting fiercely, and gradually drawing nearer to the great stone fountain which rears its stately mass from one of the grass plots. ”

“ Surely there is no greater gift to a man than that which turns all his aims into parching lips and all life into a fountain.And in this lies my honour and my reward,— That whenever I come to the fountain to drink I find the living water itself thirsty ”

“ The music of the fountain is heard in the soul within, till the steps, deceived and erring, rove away from its waters, and the wanderer dies in the mighty desert. Think you that none who have cherished the hope have found the truth? ”

“ Church doorways are carved with beautiful and fantastic forms by men whose names were long ago forgotten. Common dwellings are adorned with picturesque dormer windows. Even the narrow crooked streets hold their share of beauty, for here are fountains so exquisite in their workmanship that their like is not to be found elsewhere. Here it is the Beautiful Fountain, gay with sculptures of heroes and saints, and there it is the Little Gooseman’s Fountain where humor is added to beauty. ”

“ In the centre of the hall springs an ornamental fountain, the water of which continually throws itself into new shapes and snatches the most diversified lines from the stained atmosphere around. It is impossible to conceive what a strange vivacity is imparted to the scene by the magic dance of this fountain, with its endless transformations, in which the imaginative beholder may discern what form he will. ”