And has manhood no dreams? Does the soul wither at that Rubicon which lies between the Gallic country of youth and the Rome of manliness? Does not fancy still love to cheat the heart, and weave gorgeous tissues to hang upon that horizon which lies along the years that are to come? Is happiness so exhausted that no new forms of it lie in the mines of imagination, for busy hopes to drag up to day?

Where then would live the motives to an upward looking of the eye and of the soul; where the beckonings that bid us ever onward?

But these later dreams are not the dreams of fond boyhood, whose eye sees rarely below the surface of things; nor yet the delicious hopes of sparkling-blooded youth: they are dreams of sober trustfulness, of practical results, of hard-wrought world-success, and, maybe, of Love and of Joy.

Ambitious forays do not rest where they rested once: hitherto the balance of youth has given you, in all that you have dreamed of accomplishment, a strong vantage against age; hitherto in all your estimates you have been able to multiply them by that access of thought and of strength which manhood would bring to you. Now this is forever ended.

There is a great meaning in that word—manhood. It covers all human growth. It supposes no extensions or increase; it is integral, fixed, perfect,—the whole. There is no getting beyond manhood; it is much to live up to it; but once reached, you are all that a man was made to be in this world.

It is a strong thought—that a man is perfected, so far as strength goes; that he will never be abler to do his work than under the very sun which is now shining on him. There is a seriousness that few call to mind in the reflection that whatever you do in this age of manhood is an unalterable type of your whole bigness. You may qualify particulars of your character by refinements, by special studies, and practice; but, once a man, and there is no more manliness to be lived for!

This thought kindles your soul to new and swifter dreams of ambition than belonged to youth. They were toys; these are weapons. They were fancies; these are motives. The soul begins to struggle with the dust, the sloth, the circumstance, that beleaguer humanity, and to stagger into the van of action.

Perception, whose limits lay along a narrow horizon, now tops that horizon, and spreads, and reaches toward the heaven of the Infinite. The mind feels its birth, and struggles toward the great birth-master. The heart glows; its humanities even yield and crimple under the fierce heat of mental pride. Vows leap upward, and pile rampart upon rampart to scale all the degrees of human power.

Are there not times in every man's life when there flashes on him a feeling—nay, more, an absolute conviction—that this soul is but a spark belonging to some upper fire; and that, by as much as we draw near by effort, by resolve, by intensity of endeavor, to that upper fire, by so much we draw nearer to our home, and mate ourselves with angels? Is there not a ringing desire in many minds to seize hold of what floats above us in the universe of thought, and drag down what shreds we can to scatter to the world? Is it not belonging to greatness to catch lightning from the plains where lightning lives, and curb it for the handling of men?

Resolve is what makes a man manliest;—not puny resolve, not crude determination, not errant purpose, but that strong and indefatigable will which treads down difficulties and danger as a boy treads down the heaving frost-lands of winter,—which kindles his eye and brain with a proud pulse-beat toward the unattainable. Will makes men giants. It made Napoleon an emperor of kings, Bacon a fathomer of nature, Byron a tutor of passion, and the martyrs masters of Death!

In this age of manhood you look back upon the dreams of the years that are past: they glide to the vision in pompous procession; they seem bloated with infancy. They are without sinew or bone. They do not bear the hard touches of the man's hand.

It is not long, to be sure, since the summer of life ended with that broken hope; but the few years that lie between have given long steps upward. The little grief that threw its shadow, and the broken vision that deluded you, have made the passing years long in such feeling as ripens manhood. Nothing lays the brown of autumn upon the green of summer so quick as storms.

There have been changes too in the home scenes; these graft age upon a man. Nelly—your sweet Nelly of childhood, your affectionate sister of youth—has grown out of the old brotherly companionship into the new dignity of a household.

The fire flames and flashes upon the accustomed hearth. The father's chair is there in the wonted corner; he himself—we must call him the old man now, though his head shows few white honors—wears a calmness and a trust that light the failing eye. Nelly is not away; Nelly is a wife; and the husband yonder, as you may have dreamed,—your old friend Frank.

Her eye is joyous; her kindness to you is unabated; her care for you is quicker and wiser. But yet the old unity of the household seems broken; nor can all her winning attentions bring back the feeling which lived in Spring under the garret-roof.

The isolation, the unity, the integrity of manhood make a strong prop for the mind, but a weak one for the heart. Dignity can but poorly fill up that chasm of the soul which the home affections once occupied. Life's duties and honors press hard upon the bosom that once throbbed at a mother's tones, and that bounded in a mother's smiles.

In such home, the strength you boast of seems a weakness; manhood leans into childish memories, and melts—as Autumn frosts yield to a soft south-wind coming from a Tropic spring. You feel in a desert, where you once felt at home,—in a bounded landscape, that was once the world!

The tall sycamores have dwindled to paltry trees; the hills that were so large, and lay at such grand distance to the eye of childhood, are now near by, and have fallen away to mere rolling waves of upland. The garden-fence, that was so gigantic, is now only a simple paling; its gate that was such a cumbrous affair—reminding you of Gaza—you might easily lift from its hinges. The lofty dove-cote, which seemed to rise like a monument of art before your boyish vision, is now only a flimsy box upon a tall spar of hemlock.

The garret even, with its lofty beams, its dark stains, and its obscure corners, where the white hats and coats hung ghost-like, is but a low loft darkened by age,—hung over with cobwebs, dimly lighted with foul windows,—its romping Charlie—its glee—its swing—its joy—its mystery—all gone forever.

The old gallipots and retorts are not anywhere to be seen in the second-story window of the brick schoolhouse. Dr. Bidlow is no more! The trees that seemed so large, the gymnastic feats that were so extraordinary, the boy that made a snapper of his handkerchief,—have all lost their greatness and their dread. Even the springy usher, who dressed his hair with the ferule, has become the middle-aged father of five curly-headed boys, and has entered upon what once seemed the gigantic commerce of "stationery and account-books."

The marvellous labyrinth of closets at the old mansion where you once paid a visit—in a coach—is all dissipated. They have turned out to be the merest cupboards in the wall. Nat, who had travelled and seen London, is by no means so surprising a fellow to your manhood as he was to the boy. He has grown spare, and wears spectacles. He is not so famous as he was. You would hardly think of consulting him now about your marriage, or even about the price of goats upon London Bridge.

As for Jenny,—your first, fond flame!—lively, romantic, black-eyed Jenny,—the reader of "Thaddeus of Warsaw,"—who sighed and wore blue ribbons on her bonnet,—who wrote love-notes,—who talked so tenderly of broken hearts,—who used a glass seal with a Cupid and a dart,—dear Jenny!—she is now the plump and thriving wife of the apothecary of the town! She sweeps out every morning at seven the little entry of the apothecary's house; she buys a "joint" twice a week from the butcher, and is particular to have the "knuckle" thrown in for soups; she wears a sky-blue calico gown, and dresses her hair in three little flat quirls on either side of her head, each one pierced through with a two-pronged hair-pin.

She does not read "Thaddeus of Warsaw" now.