Page:An Epistle to Posterity.djvu/17

vi living?" in the affermative. I have found it eminently so. Life has been an enjoyable experiment, and amusing, in spite of its sorrows and disappointments. Life is a success if we can work and laugh. It has been a perpetual pleasure to me to see luxury march on with giant tread; to watch the great city of New York grow; to welcome art and beauty into our houses; to see the statues and the buildings improve in every decade. It has even been a pleasure (the sure accompaniment of advancing years) to say, "Oh, we had greater geniuses on the stage and in the forum, and greater beauties at the balls, in the old time!" That gentle murmur of complaint is, however, lost in the magnificent march of the coming centuries. Quite worth while it is to have seen the transition period.

M. E. W. S.