superficial and a hidden self, the latter somewhat whimsical and perhaps
ridiculous, shared only with a few intimate friends for whom he would have let
himself be cut into bits. He believes his transition period lasted longer than with
the majority of men, and during it he was carried from one extreme to another;
had rather eccentric and absurd manners, and touched moat of the perilous rocks
on the voyage of life. He had an early love for an older girl whose name he
wrote in cipher on his books, although he felt it a little artificial, but believed it
might have developed into a great and true hereditary friendship, continuing that
which their ancestors had felt for many generations. The birth of love in his heart
was in a dream after having read the forbidden poet, Alfred de Musset. He was
fourteen, and in his dream it was a soft, odorous twilight. He walked amid
flowers seeking a nameless some one whom he ardently desired, and felt that
something strange and wonderful, intoxicating as it advanced, was going to
happen. The twilight grew deeper, and behind a rose-bush he saw a young girl
with a languorous and mysterious smile, although her forehead and eyes were
hidden. As it darkened rather suddenly, her eyes came out, and they were very
personal and seemed to belong to some one already much beloved, who had
been found with "transports of infinite joy and tenderness." He woke with a start
and sought to retain the phantom, which faded. He could not conceive that was a
mere illusion, and as he realized that she had vanished he felt overwhelmed with
hopelessness. It was the first stirring "of true love with all its great melancholy
and deep mystery, with its overwhelming but sad enchantment—love which like
a perfume endows with a fragrance all it touches."
It is, I believe, high time that ephebic literature should be recognized as a class
by itself, and have a place of its own in the history of letters and in criticism.
Much of it should be individually prescribed for the reading of the young, for
whom it has a singular zest and is a true stimulus and corrective. This stage of
life now has what might almost be called a school of its own. Here the young
appeal to and listen to each other as they do not to adults, and in a way the latter
have failed to appreciate. Again, no biography, and especially no autobiography,
should henceforth be complete if it does not describe this period of
transformation so all-determining for future life to which it alone can often give
the key. Rightly to draw the lessons of this age not only saves us from waste
ineffable of this rich but crude area of experience, but makes maturity saner and
more complete. Lastly, many if not most young people should be encouraged to
enough of the confessional private journalism to teach them self-knowledge, for
the art of self-expression usually begins now if ever, when it has a wealth of