The various periods of life, then, must deposit and store away in the human being each a product peculiar to itself; in childhood the childlike nature, without which a man never becomes a well-rounded man, exerting a kindly influence upon other men; in youth that freshness and enthusiasm of spirit which begets the power of doing things; in manhood and womanhood the fulness and ripeness of all the thoughts and feelings, and the firmness that springs from a character steeled by deeds already achieved. Only thus can age also do its worthy task, not in falling into disconsolate decay, but in the quiet possession and contemplation of what life was and should be, and in the preparation for a greater and broader development. Whoever skips any such period, or, as is more frequently the case, hastens over it and makes no use of its peculiar advantages, will seldom or never be in a position to retrieve it later, but will always have a very perceptible deficiency in his make-up. To prevent this in younger years is a matter of education, of which I will not speak here, but in later life it is one of the chief aspects of that self-training to which a man is indebted for the real acquisitions of life more than to all the things that others can do for him. In reference to its general character, in the aspect which one usually calls happiness or unhappiness, or a hard or easy lot, experience shows (and in most cases very plainly) that every life consists of three divisions, of which the first and the third are alike and the second unlike. Whoever has had a hard, unhappy youth is more likely to have a more favorable and successful manhood, but scarcely a cloudless end. On the other hand, when the days of youth are golden, they are almost always the precursor of exertions and storms in the middle part of life, on which there follows a quieter evening of age. Oftentimes this distinction also holds good for the minor steplike subdivisions of these three great divisions. Which is the happier case may well be doubtful. Very energetic men fond of activity, who are substantially minded not to let “the vestiges of their earthly days vanish in the æons,” will be disposed to lay the greater value upon a successful manhood; but sunny-natured men need an untroubled youth and likewise a rougher middle period, if they are to be strong enough to exhibit in their age the pattern of a fully ripened life, perfected in every direction, so far as lies in the power of man. Once in his life, at any rate, a man must have it hard and heavy if he is to attain to the right way himself and to gain an understanding of the burdens of others; and on the whole a strong old age is best suited for that. And if the childhood days have been joyous, they afford an afterglow for the whole life, and in the reverse case, a bitter feeling of wrong. It is likewise difficult to be obliged, for the first time, to bear the hardest lot of all in old age.