Newcomer

“ For the present it is enough to say that each one manifested an increasing personal interest in the newcomer, and as soon as developments permitted, set about instructing her in the various directions most in accord with the tastes and pursuits of each. ”

“ Myriel had to undergo the fate of every newcomer in a little town, where there are many mouths which talk, and very few heads which think. ”

“ When a new member, for instance, is receiving his vigorous initiation and being hustled here and there like a chip in raging waters, his silk hat skimming along the floor, the foot ball of hundreds of feet, his collar at right angles with his person and his coat tails flying like a Dutch lugger under full sail, a group of older members may look on with apparent disapproval, but the moment the newcomer is driven in their direction he finds that his last state is worse than the first. ”

“ From one point of view only can anything be said in its favour, and that is, that, allowing there are already too many people in the world, it will be an advantage to get rid of as many of the weakest of newcomers as possible. ”

“ Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a revery of long days and nights; destined finally to go out into that dirty gray turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken. ”

“ The position of the new-comers for a considerable time, perhaps for a couple of generations, is not an enviable one, for they are treated coldly and looked at askance by the majority of their fellow-nobles. ”

“ The wanderer [656] "feels himself new-born," as he learns, with his eyes, the living history of every new people, and compares, in his judgment, the lessons of his ripe manhood with the instruction imparted in his confined and straitened youth. ”

“ As she and I hung over the deck rail side by side we felt ourselves on the edge of wonders. The Old World was in need of us, and we were in need of the New. To us who were New World born, and who were coming back to generous, easy-going welcome after the unspeakable things we had seen, the craving for New World brotherhood and vigor was like that of hunger or thirst. ”

“ Religion.—Religious knowledge—the Sabbath—early piety recommended—uncertainty of life. 124
[9] ANECDOTES FOR BOYS. CHAPTER I.
THE BOY MAKES THE MAN.
A MAN’S character is formed early in life. There may be some exceptions. In some instances, very great changes take place after a person has grown to manhood. But, even in such cases, many of the early habits of thought, feeling, and action still remain. And sometimes, we are disappointed in the favorable appearances of early life. Not unfrequently the promising boy, in youth or early manhood, runs a rapid race downward in the road to ruin. ”

“ Well, to this I might make simple and sufficient answer, saying that the figure of unbefriended youth, with its promise, a new-comer alone in the market-place, has ever been one of the most poignant in life, and, because in life, therefore in literature. ”

“ Resurrection of the novices. Pretence of the novices that they have forgotten everything. Accordingly it would be announced that on a certain market-day the new initiates, now raised from the dead, would reveal themselves in all their glory to the astonished gaze of the public. ”

“ Can anything in the world be more adventurous than to start a new home, and a new generation, to have six young lives entrusted to one to train for the world’s service? Think what those six lives may mean, multiplying into fresh lives, spreading influence wherever they go! ”

“ I see before me an assemblage of young people, full of the blood of youth, just entering upon the voyage of life. It is an interesting spectacle to me, as to us all, to meet such an assembly as I see before me this morning in an institution of learning, of knowledge, and of ethics and of Christian graces. ”

“ Youth, however, was the truth of him. The inspiration, the freshness, the simplicity of outlook—these were the dominating elements in his character, and they were altogether compact of youth. He looked upon the world with expectant eyes and an unfaltering faith. ”

“ Hast thou hoped for the society of the wise and good? Then with diligence and untiring zeal you should seek to fit yourself for such companionship. Have your early companions got before you in the race of life; and yet you remain at ease, dreaming over the past. Awake, young man, ere yet your day is done; and address yourself to your work with renewed energy, look forward to your future instead of brooding over the past, and be assured you will acquire wisdom, friends and every other needful blessing. ”

“ Days of first youth; youth's high impressions of great and lovely things; all the innocent, stingless joys of art and travel, of happy talk and ripening faculty, of pure ambitions, hero-worships, compassions, shared and mutually enkindled: these were for ever intertwined with their thoughts of each other. ”

“ I, too, seemed old; felt the old age that parents feel when the younger generation has left them, when they are needed no longer by the new manhood and womanhood, when they begin to be pushed back to the past. ”

“ But it is noted only as a curious fact of natural history which has no bearing upon the college world. The real [Pg 234] question is, What kind of a fellow is the new man? Is he a good companion; has he the power of leadership; can he do anything particularly well; is he a vigorous and friendly person? ”

“ Often my men have told me that the new-comers were people who had been waiting to make a journey, but, fearing to do so till we came by, they had joined us for the sake of our protection, working for us in return. ”

“ And indeed what has age to do with you, who are already immortal, staying on here in the pleasant land of France for a time, but having made for yourself a sure habitation among that great company of writers already in Elysium who talk to youth with the freshness of youth, and to all with a living wisdom, now and for centuries to come? Millions of readers yet unborn will grow up to find in you a liberator, a choice companion, a very dear friend. ”

“ The new book, in which we form an intimacy with a new friend, whose mind is wiser and riper than our own, may thus form an important starting-point in the history of a life. It may sometimes almost be regarded in the light of a new birth. ”

“ All the eagerness of youth for a strange life, for great distances, for a future in which there were an air of adventure, of combat a subtle thought of redress and conquest, had filled her with an intense excitement, which she returned to the giver with a more open and exquisite display of tenderness. ”

“ The youngest of us will not see many springs. Let us see the most that we can of this one. So much there will be to look at! Now, of all times, we may say with one of old, “Lord, that I might receive my sight.” What a new world we should find ourselves living in! ”

“ A young man and an old man met once; and the old man asked the young man, 'What do you hold as the object of life?' The young man answered, 'Study'.'What then?' 'A Degree.' 'What then?' 'Making money' 'What then?' and thus the queries multiplied, till, feeling utterly teased, the youth exclaimed, "And then I will die." ”

“ Should he desire to reject it, let him do so; it will arise one generation later. Should he desire to adopt it, let him do so; it will arise one generation earlier. A generation is as one moment in heaven's eyes. Heaven is eternal. ”

“ It's no bad show of what the world without is; and one of its first lessons and that which I think the truest, is the necessity of having a trial of strength with every new-comer; until we learn where he's to stand in the ranks, number one or number nothing. You see there just the same passions, though, perhaps, on a small scale, that we afterward find to act upon the big world of manhood. ”

“ People still hardly realise how new human beings are formed; therefore the old types constantly repeat themselves in the same circle,—the fine young men, the sweet girls, the respectable officials, and so on. ”

“ To us of a younger generation—the descendants of your early friends and companions in arms, a different but not less interesting privilege belongs. We are allowed the enviable distinction of meeting in his riper years, one, whom our fathers loved in their youth. ”

“ The principles we fondly looked to, like our guide-stars, are dimly visible, not seen; the friends we cherished are changed and gone; the scenes themselves seem no longer the sunshine and the shade we loved; and, in fact, we are living in a new world, where our own altered condition gives the type to all around us ”

“ The generation which was from fifteen to twenty years of age, at the brilliant but fleeting epoch of which I am speaking, is now between fifty-five and sixty. It will be asked whether this generation has realised the unbounded hopes which the ardent spirit of our great preceptor had conceived. ”

“ What a claim upon your love has he who can, by some passing word, some fast-flitting thought, bring back the days of your youth! What interest can he not excite by some anecdote of your boyish days, some well-remembered trait of youthful daring, or early enterprise! ”

“ The young who left my side early in my life's journey are still with me in the unchanged freshness and beauty of youth. Those who have long kept company with me live on after their seeming departure, were it only by the mere force of habit ”

“ The supremacy of youth—a vital feature of such fiction—is indicated when the inspired messenger boy gives a "pointer" to an old and influential firm of brokers, who receive it with glistening eyes and respectful gratitude. ”

“ Youth, like the extremity of age, had effaced the strongly marked characteristics of middle life, and mutually assimilated them all. They were a group of merry youngsters, almost maddened with the exuberant frolic someness of their years. ”

“ Say at once that I throw my child at the head of the first-comer! We are among ourselves, we discuss him: he is this, he is that, not young, not handsome, not intelligent. We just talk the matter over, do we not? ”

“ In contradistinction, therefore, to the older people, the new people are called young, having learned the new blessings; and we have the exuberance of life’s morning prime in this youth which knows no old age, in which we are always growing to maturity in intelligence, are always young, always mild, always new: for those must necessarily be new, who have become partakers of the new Word. ”

“ A new man, hitherto unknown, appears upon the scene. And this new man often seems more natural, more spontaneous, more vivid, than our old acquaintance. “At last,” we say to ourselves, “we know the true inwardness, the real reality of this fellow. He is not acting a part now. He is coming to the surface. We see what a bad fellow, or what a good fellow, he is. ”

“ I must have a junior, with my increasing practice, and you are the junior I want. We are old and tried friends; we have worked together; we like and trust one another, and you are the best man for the job that I know. ”

“ These are the countenances of the first-born,—the face of man in the morning of the world. No mark is on these lofty features, of sloth, or luxury, or meanness, and they surprise you with a moral admonition, as they speak of nothing around you, but remind you of the fragrant thoughts and the purest resolutions of your youth. ”

“ The thought which has long haunted my reveries, and which I desire to speak out to-day, is this—that the young men of your generation might and should take up anew the unfinished work of their predecessors, and carry it another stage towards the end which they aimed to reach. ”

“ The new generation, the children of those whom we knew at first, are now ready to take their places, and bear themselves with more or less credit in what may be going on. And now comes a period which in the memory of all those whom I have introduced to you ranks as the most important of their lives. ”

“ I was just wondering---- I don't think much of wasting all our youth waiting---- Two-three years in engineering school, and maybe going to war, and starting in on an engineering job, and me lonely as a turkey in a chicken yard, and you doing the faithful young lady in Brooklyn---- I think perhaps we might get married tomorrow and----"
⁠"Good heavens, what do you----?" ”

“ Generation after generation takes to itself the form of a body; and forth issuing from Cimmerian Night on Heaven's mission appears. What force and fire there is in each he expends, one grinding in the mill of Industry; one hunter-like climbing the giddy Alpine heights of science ”

“ The old life was wiped out and a quite new life had begun in which there were as yet no mistakes. Here as a new man among new men he could gain a new and good reputation. He was conscious of a youthful and unreasoning joy of life. ”

“ New York, April 29th.—Last night I came upon this passage in my old author: "Friend, take it sadly home to thee—Age and Youthe are strangers still. Youthe, being ignorant of the wisdome of Age, which is Experience, but wise with its own wisdome, which is of the unshackeled Soule, or Intuition, is great in Enterprise, but slack in Achievement. ”

“ Never once during a year's observance of surface-car phenomena have I seen a row of luxuriously seated people make a movement to give place to a new-comer, no matter how old or how well gowned she may be. ”