"Youth, however, can afford to enjoy even its melancholy; for the ultimate fact of which that melancholy is a prophecy is a long way off"

To be young is to possess a certain untouchable freedom, and even sorrow is tinged with a secret sweetness. Melancholy in youth bears little resemblance to the despair of later years; it is more like a shadow cast by the body’s lightness, a sense of sadness unaccompanied by the full weight of consequence. Richard Le Gallienne’s words capture this paradoxical liberty. The awareness of loss, passage, or mortality that stirs in youthful hearts is felt, but lacks the urgent finality familiarity brings with time. Young people, sensing distance between themselves and the "ultimate fact", death or irrefutable endings, can slip into moods of sadness that are colored by dramatic self-regard, nostalgia for a present moment already being missed, or a longing for loves yet untested.

Melancholy thus becomes not a burden but a kind of elegant adornment, an emotion worn much like a beautiful garment, because the true outcome it portends remains abstract. Youth’s sorrow is often performative, a rehearsal for tragedy rather than tragedy itself. There is safety in the inevitability not yet encountered, a future not yet arrived. The longing or sadness of youth can be enjoyed, even aestheticized, because it is insulated from the finality it hints at. The awareness of mortality or time’s passage remains misty and theoretical, and so the feelings woven around it acquire poetic grandeur rather than existential dread.

As life progresses, that prophecy, the "ultimate fact", draws closer, and melancholy assumes a graver aspect. Only then does sorrow mature into something heavier, casting a sharper shadow over existence. While young, the luxury of distance from final truths makes even melancholy an experience of vitality, imagination, and beauty. It is the bittersweet privilege of those who have not yet paid the price of experience, who can still turn anticipation and longing into a feast for the senses and spirit.