The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1883-08-30
Advice to Youth.
An Eloquent Address by M. Rcnan on the
Value of Life.

Subioined are some of the more striking
passages from an address made by NJ. Renan
to the pupils of the Lycee Louis-le Grande
in Paris
Consider your life before you as matter
serious and full of responsible les. But is
that reason to regard you as less favored
by fate than your predecessors? Quite the
contrary, young peopie Never say, as did
those malcontents of whom the prophet
speaks, "Onr fathers have eaten sour grapes,
and their children's teeth are set on edge"
Your lot is fair, and see thousand rea-
sons to envy it, not merely because you are
young, and because youth is the entry upon
an excellent thing, namely, existence; but
you will see what we shall never see; you
will know what we seek for restlessly; you
will possess the solution of many political
problem about which we hesitate, because
the facts have not yet pronounced them
selves with sufficient cearness.
Your years forbid you to be cautious.
Nobody is fearful about life after beginning
it. A kind of blindness. skillfully arranged
by Nature, presents existence to you as a
tempting booty which you burn to seize up
on. Wiser men than you win warn you
against the Illusion which underlies your
youthful ardor. They will tell you of dis
appointments; they will say that existence
does not keep its promises, and that il peo-
pie only knew what it was they took In hand,
they would not hav the naV empressement
of YOUR age. But declare to you that is
not my sentiment. / have traversed this
life, which opens before you like an un-
anown and limitless land. | expect to en-
counter nothing much more in it of the
novel; its termination, which seems to you
indefinitely ia off, Is very near for me- Well,
with my hand on my heart, I say that
have found this life, which 1t is tie fashion
to calumniate, good, and well worthy the
appetite which youth shows for it. The one
real illusion Of which you are guilty about
| it is to believe it long. No, it is short, very
| sh ,rt; but even thus l assure you it is well
| to have existed. and the first duty of man
| towards that infinitude from which he emer-
| ges is 10 be grateful. The generous rash
less which makes you enter, without a
shadow of drriere-penSee upon career, at
the close of which so many enlightened
folks aver they have found nothing save
disgust, is really very philosophic after its
kind. Forward, therefore, with good hearts
suppress nothing of your ardor; that flame
which burns within you is the same spirit
which, providentially spread throughout the
bosom of humanity, is the principle of its
| motive source. Forward, forward say /; lose
| not your love and passion for living. Speak
no evil of the boundless bountifulness from
| which your being emerges, and in the special
/ nrdar of r,di hlo.c
lot which has bestowed on you a generous
| country, devoted teachers, kind relations,
and conditions of development in which you
have no longer to strive against the old bar
barisms.
That joyous intoxication, then, which
springs from the new wine of life, and
renders you deaf to the weak complaints of
the feeble-hearted, is legitimate. Do not be
ashamed to abandon yourselves to its infu-
encesl You will find existence full of sweet
SAVIOR, if you do not expect from it what
it cannot give. When people complain of
life ii is almost always because they have
asked impossible things from it. Upon this
believe wholly the teaching of the wisest-
there is but one foundation for happy life,
the pursuit, namely, of the good and of the
true. You will be well pleased with exis-
tence if you make fair use of it, and if you
abide well pleased with yourselves. A noble
sentence is that which says: "Seek We first
BE added unto Won.
| On similar occasion of this Of to-day. but
43 years ago, the illustrious M Jouffrey ad-
| dressed the following stern words to the
| pupils of the Lydee Charlmagne: sour
| duty, to whom experience has unveiled the
ultimate truths about the things of this
world, is to announce it to you. The noun
.ain's top of life hides from you its
firthest slope; OF. its two sides you see but
| one, that which you are ascending; it is
bright, beautiful, fragrant as spring-.ime.
You are not able, as we are, to contemplate
the other fall, with its melancholy aspect,
its pale sunlight, and the icy river flowing at
the bottom" Well, my lads, say no to all
that 1t is 100 mournfull The sunlight is
never pale, though ii is often vailed. Be-
cause man grows old, has he the right to
say that the flowers have grown less lovely,
and the springtide less radiant? Are we.
forsootb, to grumble because we cannot live
forever on earth? What rubbish is this, Just
heaven! Amidst all the flowers land how
sweet and fair that flower world is j only one
seems to me without any charm. 1t is the
slckly, dry, stiff, withered, dIsagreeably gilt
tering thing which gardeners wrongly call
THE immortelle." do not call 1t flower.
prefer the bright and sweet rose, though
1t has the defect OF fading away all too soon.
You will behold the twentieth century,
my young scholars! All! / confess envy
you that other privilege, you will see the un-
forseen! You will hear what posterity saws
of us, you will know what there was of SOL
i'd and what of frail in our dreams. Be kind
to US who preceded you. This poor old
nineteenth century, which will be SO well
abused, had good people in it, faithful souls,
warm heart and heroes of duty. Genera
tons as they follow each other are ofttimes
unjust to each other. You are the nursery
garden OF the talent of the future. i fancy I
descry amid you the very critic who about
the year 1910 or 1920 A D., will sit In judg-
ment on this age. imagine read his in
dictment permit me to indulge nv ideal:
"What sign of the times! what complete
reversal of all proper notions of things, to
choose in 1888 for our president at the dis
tribution OF prizes man, harmless enough,
but the very last who should have been Sc
lected, etc., etc. He gave some good advice
but what feeblenes, what lack Of indignas
ton against his timesr' Thus, doubtless.
will write the conscientious critic of the
twentieth century, and perhaps he will not
be far wrong; but do not let him forget to
add how glad l was to be amongst you. how