EXPECTATION.
Reading edition
It is pleasant to expect; at least it is so in youth, when temperament and inexperience combine to paint life en beau. Expectation is hope coloured by fancy. It is a proof of abundant vitality; and even when disappointment falls over it, like a shadow, it is still worth its purchase.
“Ah! que ne puis-je encore l’attendre. Dût-il encore ne pas venir.”[26]
This is perfectly in nature. The old seldom expect. It is among the terrible inflictions of age, when humanity loses so many of its attributes, that the heart sends forth none of those shoots of expectation which fill up the intervals of actual enjoyment. The sap is dried, and the trunk is shrivelled—shrunk in its dimensions, and seared on its surface; and the branch, and the flower, and the fruit have withered and dropped. “The spring shall return with its blossoms; but of me not a leaf shall arise,” says Ossian. Alas for the beauty, the truth, and the sadness of this image!