Let the world,
then--the men and women who have won their places in life--let them
nourish the enthusiasms and the elemental "illusions" of youth
wherever they see them.
After all, they are not illusions; they are the only true things in
this universe. The houses that men construct will in time decay. The
remorseless elements will rot the noblest trees down to the earth from
which they grew. The laws that men make will lose their force and be
succeeded by other statutes, equally temporary and futile. Reputations
men build will vanish almost before they are made. Civilizations they
erect will pass from their flowering into the seeds of future
civilizations and be forgotten, too.
But the "illusions" with which the young man confronts the world at
the beginning of his career are as everlasting as God's word: "Till
heaven and earth pass, one jot or one little shall in no wise pass
from the law, till all be fulfilled." The "illusions" of the young
man--of the young American particularly--are the manifestations of
that law, the eternal law of the eternal verities.
"The lyrical dream of the boy is the kingly truth.
The world is a vapor and only the Vision is real--
Yea, nothing can hold against hell but the Winged Ideal.
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