NOTE.—The following is a tolerably literal translation of the poem of Lermontof's to which allusion is made on p. 208, and which created no slight sensation when it first appeared, in the year 1838:—
A THOUGHT.
Sorrowfully do I look upon the present generation! Its future seems either gloomy or meaningless, and meanwhile, whether under the burden of knowledge or of doubt, it grows old in idleness.
When scarcely out of the cradle, we reap the rich inheritance of the errors of our fathers, and the results of their tardy thoughts. Life soon grows wearisome for us, like a banquet at a stranger's festival, like a level road leading nowhere.
In the commencement of our career, we fall away without a struggle, shamefully careless about right and wrong, shamefully timid in the face of danger.
So does a withered fruit which has prematurely ripened—attractive neither to the eye nor to the palate—hang like an alien orphan among blossoms; and the hour of their beauty is that of its fall.
Our intellect has dried up in the pursuit of fruitless science, while we have been concealing the purest of hopes from the knowledge of those who are near and dear to us, and stifling the noble utterance of such sentiments as are ridiculed by a mocking spirit.
We have scarcely tasted of the cup of enjoyment, but for all that we have not husbanded our youthful strength. While we were always in dread of satiety, we have contrived to drain each joy of its best virtues.
No dreams of poetry, no creations of art, touch our hearts with a sweet rapture. We stingily hoard up within our breasts the last remnants of feeling—a treasure concealed by avarice, and which remains utterly unprofitable.
We love and we hate capriciously, sacrificing nothing either to our animosity or to our affection, a certain secret coldness possessing our souls, even while a fire is raging in our veins.