See the minutes, how they run,
How many make the hour full complete;
How many hours bring about the day;
How many days will finish up the year;
How many years a mortal man may live.
"She can't do sums a bit!" the Queens said together, with great emphasis. "Can you do sums?" Alice said, turning suddenly on the White Queen, for she didn't like being found fault with so much. The Queen gasped and shut her eyes. "I can do Addition, if you give me time-but I can do Subtraction, under any circumstances!"
On a fair prospect some have looked, And felt, as I have heard them say, As if the moving time had been A thing as steadfast as the scene On which they gazed themselves away.
How silent, how spacious, what room for all, yet without place to insert an atom--in graceful succession, in equal fullness, in balanced beauty, the dance of the hours goes forward still. Like an odor of incense, like a strain of music, like a sleep, it is inexact and boundless. It will not be dissected, nor unraveled, nor shown.
Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy;—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.
Youth! There is nothing like youth. The middle-aged are mortgaged to Life. The old are in Life's lumber-room. But youth is the Lord of Life. Youth has a kingdom waiting for it. Every one is born a king, and most people die in exile.