That ours is "a
peculiar case."
That when like babes with fingers burned
We count one bitter maxim more,
Our lesson all the world has learned,
And men are wiser than before.
That when we sob o'er fancied woes,
The angels hovering overhead
Count every pitying drop that flows
And love us for the tears we shed.
That when we stand with tearless eye
And turn the
beggar from our door,
They still
approve us when we sigh,
"Ah, had I but ONE THOUSAND MORE!"
That
weakness smoothed the path of sin,
In half the slips our youth has known;
And whatsoe'er its blame has been,
That Mercy flowers on faults outgrown.
Though temples crowd the crumbled brink
O'erhanging truth's
eternal flow,
Their tablets bold with WHAT WE THINK,
Their echoes dumb to WHAT WE KNOW;
That one unquestioned text we read,
All doubt beyond, all fear above,
Nor crackling pile nor cursing creed
Can burn or blot it: GOD IS LOVE!
CHAPTER VII.
[THIS particular record is noteworthy
principally for containing a
paper by my friend, the Professor, with a poem or two annexed or
intercalated. I would suggest to young persons that they should
pass over it for the present, and read, instead of it, that story
about the young man who was in love with the young lady, and in
great trouble for something like nine pages, but happily married on
the tenth page or thereabouts, which, I take it for granted, will
be contained in the
periodical where this is found, unless it
differ from all other publications of the kind. Perhaps, if such
young people will lay the number aside, and take it up ten years,
or a little more, from the present time, they may find something in
it for their
advantage. They can't possibly understand it all
now.]
My friend, the Professor, began talking with me one day in a dreary
sort of way. I couldn't get at the difficulty for a good while,
but at last it turned out that somebody had been
calling him an old
man. - He didn't mind his students
calling him THE old man, he
said. That was a
technical expression, and he thought that he
remembered
hearing it
applied to himself when he was about twenty-
five. It may be considered as a familiar and sometimes endearing
appellation. An Irishwoman calls her husband "the old man," and he
returns the caressing expression by
speaking of her as "the old
woman." But now, said he, just suppose a case like one of these.
A young stranger is overheard talking of you as a very nice old
gentleman. A friendly and
genialcritic speaks of your green old
age as illustrating the truth of some axiom you had uttered with
reference to that period of life. What I call an old man is a
person with a smooth, shining crown and a
fringe of scattered white
hairs, seen in the streets on sunshiny days, stooping as he walks,
bearing a cane, moving
cautiously and slowly; telling old stories,
smiling at present follies, living in a narrow world of dry habits;
one that remains waking when others have dropped asleep, and keeps
a little night-lamp-flame of life burning year after year, if the
lamp is not upset, and there is only a careful hand held round it
to prevent the puffs of wind from blowing the flame out. That's
what I call an old man.
Now, said the Professor, you don't mean to tell me that I have got
to that yet? Why, bless you, I am several years short of the time
when - [I knew what was coming, and could hardly keep from
laughing; twenty years ago he used to quote it as one of those
absurd speeches men of
genius will make, and now he is going to
argue from it] - several years short of the time when Balzac says
that men are - most - you know - dangerous to - the hearts of - in
short, most to be dreaded by duennas that have
charge of
susceptible females. - What age is that? said I, statistically. -
Fifty-two years, answered the Professor. - Balzac ought to know,
said I, if it is true that Goethe said of him that each of his
stories must have been dug out of a woman's heart. But fifty-two
is a high figure.
Stand in the light of the window, Professor, said I. - The
Professor took up the desired position. - You have white hairs, I
said. - Had 'em any time these twenty years, said the Professor. -
And the crow's-foot, - PES ANSERINUS, rather. - The Professor
smiled, as I wanted him to, and the folds radiated like the ridges
of a half-opened fan, from the outer corner of the eyes to the
temples. - And the calipers said I. - What are the CALIPERS? he
asked,
curiously. - Why, the parenthesis, said I. - PARENTHESIS?
said the Professor; what's that? - Why, look in the glass when you
are disposed to laugh, and see if your mouth isn't framed in a
couple of
crescent lines, - so, my boy ( ). - It's all nonsense,
said the Professor; just look at my BICEPS; - and he began pulling
off his coat to show me his arm. Be careful, said I; you can't
bear
exposure to the air, at your time of life, as you could once.
- I will box with you, said the Professor, row with you, walk with
you, ride with you, swim with you, or sit at table with you, for
fifty dollars a side. - Pluck survives stamina, I answered.
The Professor went off a little out of humor. A few weeks
afterwards he came in, looking very
good-natured, and brought me a
paper, which I have here, and from which I shall read you some
portions, if you don't object. He had been thinking the matter
over, he said, - had read Cicero "De Senectute," and made up his
mind to meet old age half way. These were some of his reflections
that he had written down; so here you have.
THE PROFESSOR'S PAPER.
THERE is no doubt when old age begins. The human body is a
furnacewhich keeps in blast three-score years and ten, more or less. It
burns about three hundred pounds of
carbon a year, (besides other
fuel,) when in fair
working order, according to a great chemist's
estimate. When the fire slackens, life declines; when it goes out,
we are dead.
It has been shown by some noted French experimenters, that the
amount of
combustion increases up to about the thirtieth year,
remains
stationary to about forty-five, and then diminishes. This
last is the point where old age starts from. The great fact of
physical life is the
perpetualcommerce with the elements, and the
fire is the
measure of it.
About this time of life, if food is plenty where you live, - for
that, you know, regulates matrimony, - you may be expecting to find
yourself a
grandfather some fine morning; a kind of domestic
felicity that gives one a cool
shiver of delight to think of, as
among the not remotely possible events.
I don't mind much those slipshod lines Dr. Johnson wrote to Thrale,
telling her about life's declining from THIRTY-FIVE; the
furnace is
in full blast for ten years longer, as I have said. The Romans
came very near the mark; their age of enlistment reached from
seventeen to forty-six years.
What is the use of fighting against the seasons, or the tides, or
the
movements of the planetary bodies, or this ebb in the wave of
life that flows through us? We are old fellows from the moment the
fire begins to go out. Let us always
behave like gentlemen when we
are introduced to new acquaintance.
INCIPIT ALLEGORIA SENECTUTIS.
Old Age, this is Mr. Professor; Mr. Professor, this is Old Age.
OLD AGE. - Mr. Professor, I hope to see you well. I have known you
for some time, though I think you did not know me. Shall we walk
down the street together?
PROFESSOR (drawing back a little). - We can talk more quietly,
perhaps, in my study. Will you tell me how it is you seem to be
acquainted with everybody you are introduced to, though he
evidently considers you an entire stranger?
OLD AGE. - I make it a rule never to force myself upon a person's
recognition until I have known him at least FIVE YEARS.
PROFESSOR. - Do you mean to say that you have known me so long as
that?
OLD AGE. I do. I left my card on you longer ago than that, but I
am afraid you never read it; yet I see you have it with you.
PROFESSOR. - Where?
OLD AGE. - There, between your eyebrows, - three straight lines
running up and down; all the probate courts know that token, - "Old
Age, his mark." Put your
forefinger on the inner end of one
eyebrow, and your middle finger on the inner end of the other
eyebrow; now separate the fingers, and you will smooth out my sign-
manual; that's the way you used to look before I left my card on
you.
PROFESSOR. - What message do people generally send back when you
first call on them?
OLD AGE. - Not at home. Then I leave a card and go. Next year I
call; get the same answer; leave another card. So for five or six,
- sometimes ten years or more. At last, if they don't let me in, I
break in through the front door or the windows.
We talked together in this way some time. Then Old Age said again,
- Come, let us walk down the street together, - and offered me a
cane, an eyeglass, a tippet, and a pair of over-shoes. - No, much
obliged to you, said I. I don't want those things, and I had a
little rather talk with you here,
privately, in my study. So I
dressed myself up in a jaunty way and walked out alone; - got a
fall, caught a cold, was laid up with a lumbago, and had time to
think over this whole matter.
EXPLICIT ALLEGORIA SENECTUTIS.
We have settled when old age begins. Like all Nature's processes,
it is gentle and
gradual in its approaches, strewed with illusions,
and all its little griefs soothed by natural sedatives. But the
iron hand is not less
irresistible because it wears the velvet
glove. The button-wood throws off its bark in large flakes, which
one may find lying at its foot, pushed out, and at last pushed off,
by that
tranquilmovement from beneath, which is too slow to be
seen, but too powerful to be arrested. One finds them always, but
one
rarely sees them fall. So it is our youth drops from us, -
scales off, sapless and
lifeless, and lays bare the tender and
immature fresh growth of old age. Looked at collectively, the
changes of old age appear as a
series of personal insults and
indignities, terminating at last in death, which Sir Thomas Browne
has called "the very
disgrace and ignominy of our nature."
My lady's cheek can boast no more
The
cranberry white and pink it wore;
And where her shining locks divide,
The
parting line is all too wide -
No, no, - this will never do. Talk about men, if you will, but
spare the poor women.
We have a brief
description of seven stages of life by a remarkably
good
observer. It is very presumptuous to attempt to add to it,
yet I have been struck with the fact that life admits of a natural
analysis into no less than fifteen
distinct periods. Taking the
five
primary divisions,
infancy,
childhood, youth,
manhood, old
age, each of these has its own three periods of immaturity,
complete development, and decline. I recognize on OLD baby at
once, - with its "pipe and mug," (a stick of candy and a
porringer,) - so does everybody; and an old child shedding its
milk-teeth is only a little prototype of the old man shedding his
permanent ones. Fifty or thereabouts is only the
childhood, as it
were, of old age; the graybeard
youngster must be weaned from his
late suppers now. So you will see that you have to make fifteen
stages at any rate, and that it would not be hard to make twenty-
five; five
primary, each with five
secondary divisions.
The
infancy and
childhood of commencing old age have the same