Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 9.pdf/145

134 [J anuary,

Old Age.

134

ON the last anniversary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, the venerable President Quincy, senior mem ber of the Society, as well as senior alum nus of the University, was received at the dinner with peculiar demonstrations of respect. He replied to these compli ments in a speech, and, gracefully claim ing the privileges of a literary society, entered at some length into an Apology for Old Age, and, aiding himself by notes in his hand, made a sort of running com mentary on Cicero’s chapter “ De Senec The character of the speaker, the tute.” transparent good faith of his praise and blame, and the naivele’ of his eager pref erence of Cicero’s opinions to King Da vid's, gave unusual interest to the College festival. It was a discourse full of dig

ish, one good fellow in the set premature ly sports a gray or a bald head, which

nity, honoring him who spoke and those who heard. The speech led me to look over at home —an easy task— Cicero’s famous essay, charming by its uniform rhetorical merit; heroic with Stoical precepts; with a Ro man eye to the claims of the State ; hap piest, perhaps, in his praise of life on the farm; and rising, at the conclusion, to a But he does not exhaust the lofty strain.

son, we sometimes discover

subject; rather invites the attempt to add traits to the picture from our broader

is a

OLD AGE.

modern

life.

does not impose on us who know how in is,

of sanctity or of Platonism he his juniors and the public, who presently distinguish him with most amusing respect: and this nocent

a

but does not lem deceive

lets us into the secret, that the venerable

our childhood were Nature full of

forms that so awed

is

just such impostors.

freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders, and then a young ing under fourscore winters.

heart beat is

if

For the essence of age not pres ent, these signs, whether of Art or Na ture, are counterfeit and ridiculous: and is

the essence of age intellect. Wherev or that appears, we call old. we

If

into the eyes of the youngest

per

that here

is

it

look

already what you would go about with much pains to teach him; there that him which the ancestor is

is

in

one who knows



of all around him which fact the Indian Vedas express, when they say, “ He that

And

ther.”

is

can discriminate

of his fa

the father

in our old British

legends

a

of Arthur and the Round-Table, his friend and counsellor, Merlin the Wisa, babe found exposed in basket by the river-side, and, though an infant of only a few days, he speaks to those who

Cicero makes no reference to the illu sions which cling to the element of time, and in which Nature delights. Welling ton, in speaking of military men, said,— “ What masks are these uniforms to hide cowards! When our journal is published,

discover him, tells his name and history, and presently foretells the fate of the

many statues must come down.”

Time indeed, the theatre and seat of illusion. so ductile and Nothing The mind stretches an hour to elastic. century, and dwarfs an age to an hour.

is

I

old. is

is,

Saadi found in

old Persian of

them. Whilst we yet call ourselves young, and all our mates are yet youths and boy

is

is

and adds

dim sight, deafuess, cracked voice, snowy hair, short memory, and sleep. These also are masks, and all is not Age that wears

I’

mosque at Damascus an

hundred and ﬁfty years who was dying, and was saying to him self, said, coming into the world by few mo will enjoy myself for birth, ments.’ Alas! at the variegated table

“I

a

lends herself to these illusions,

years

a

in the

cloth shoe, wadded pelisse, wig and spec tacles, and padded chair of Age. Nature

thousand

a

the like deception

have

there

a

often detected

I

Wherever there power, age. Don’t be deceived by dim tell you that babe a ples and curls. by-standers.