"Youth is like a summer landscape"

“Life is so full of lovely, simple joys for those who are old enough to appreciate them! In youth, when all that happens to us is coloured more or less crudely by our hungry emotions and we reach out greedily for acute sensation, ever longing, never satisfied, we can scarcely taste the full flavour of our small daily delights; but the years refine our palate and sharpen our capacity for enjoyment. As we grow middle-aged we are able to take infinite pleasure in things we despised when our craving was all for some ideal rapture that never came; or, if it came, flashed like the dazzling flight of a rocket, leaving behind it nothing but the ashes of regret. Our later joys, it is true, pass as swiftly, but they leave no ashes.” 

--The Book of Common Joys Written in Autumn Sunshine for Those Who HaveLeft Summer Behind, 1916; as cited in the journal Reverend Jesse Halsey kept while serving with the YMCA in Russia, 1917-18