It is amazing how much our admiration takes its tone from the admiration of others; and when to that is added an obvious admiration of ourselves, the… - Letitia Elizabeth Landon

It matters not its history; love has wings
Like lightning , swift and fatal, and it springs
Like a wild flower where it is least expected,
Existing whether cherish'd or rejected;

Youth is frank, eager, and prone to believe in the good ; it looks round, and it sees flowers ; it looks up and sees stars ; evil appears impossible, because it does not seem to be in ourselves. It remains for after and weary years to teach us, that even the young and the innocent may be led into crime by the strong influence of temptation. Passion first, and interest afterwards, lures the feet of men into dark and crooked paths, which none in earlier and holier hours deemed they could tread. We may have been often deceived, but it is not until we ourselves begin to deceive that we dread deceit.

Methinks we must have known some former state
More glorious than our present, and the heart
Is haunted with dim memories, shadows left
By past magnificence; and hence we pine
With vain aspirings, hopes that fill the eyes
With bitter tears for their own vanity.