"Speaking mildly, I would call it concentration upon self. The horizon of youth is bounded by its own eye. It looks no farther. As it sees and feels it, the world exists for youth. We elders, parents, uncles, guardians and such, live for its benefit. We are merely accessories to the great and main fact, which is youth."
"Do you believe that to be true, Robert?" asked Master Benjamin Hardy, a twinkle in his eye.
"I hope it's not, sir," replied Robert, reddening again under his tan.
"But it's true and it will remain true," continued the schoolmaster judicially. "It was equally true of all of us who passed our youth long ago. I do not quarrel with it. I merely state a fact of life. Perhaps if I could I would not strip youth of this unconscious absorption in self, because in doing so we might deprive it of the simplicity and directness, the artless beliefs that make youth so attractive."
"I hold," said Mr. Hervey, "that age is really a state of mind. We believe certain things at twenty, others at thirty, others at forty, and so on. The beliefs of twenty are true at twenty, we must not try them by the tests of thirty, nor must we try those of thirty by the tests of forty or fifty. So how are we to say which age is the wiser, when every age accepts as true what it believes, and, so makes it true? I agree, too, with Mr. McLean, that I would not change the character of youth if I could. Looking back upon my own youth I find much in it to laugh at, but I did not laugh at it at the time. It was very real to me then, and so must its feelings be to the youth of to-day."
"We wade into deep waters," said Mynheer Jacobus, "and we may go over our heads. Ah, here are the oysters! I hope that all of you will find them to your liking."
A dozen were served for every guest—it was the day of plenty, the fields and woods and waters of America furnishing more food than its people could consume—and they approached them with the keen appetites of strong and healthy men.
"Perhaps we do not have the sea food here that you have in New York, Alan," said Master Jacobus with mock humility, "but we give you of our best."
"We've the finest oysters in the world, unless those of Baltimore be excepted," said Hervey, "but yours are, in truth, most excellent. Perhaps you can't expect to equal us in a specialty of ours. You'll recall old Tom Cotton's inn, out by the East River, and how unapproachably he serves oyster, crab, lobster and every kind of fish."
"I recall it full well, Alan. I rode out the Bowery road when I was last in New York, but I did not get a chance to go to old Tom's. You and I and Benjamin have seen some lively times there, when we were a bit younger, eh, Alan?"