Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1860-07-16
MISCELLANEOUS READING.
GOLD AGE"


The very old man loves the sunshine and
rude wind would jostle the full grown ap-
Pile from its bough, foil ripe, full colored too.
The internal characteristics correspond
General activity is less. Salient love of new
things and of new persons, which bit the
young mans heart, fades away. He thinks
the old is better. He is not venturesome
be keeps at home. Passion once stung him
into quickened life; now that CAD fy is
no more buzzing in his ears. Madame de
Stael finds compensation in science tor the
decay of the passion that once fred her blood;
heatben Socrates, seventy years old, thanks
gods that he is now free from that "ravenous
boast" which has disturbed his philospphic
meditatons for many years. Romance is
the child of passion and imagination the
sudden father that, the long protracted mo-
ther this. Old age has little romance. On
ly some rare man, like Wilhelm Won Hum
bolt, keeps it still fresh in his bosom. In
intellectual matters, the old man loves to
recall the old times, to revive his favorite
old men-no new ones half 80 fair. So In
Homer, Nestor, who is the oldest of the
Greeks, is always talking of the old times,
before the grandfathers of the men then liv-
ing had come into being; mot such as live
in these degenerate days." Verse loving
John Quincy Adams turns off from Byron
and Shelley, and Wieland and Goethe and
returns to Pope.
Elder Brewster expects to hear st. Martins
and Old Hundred chanted in Heaven. To
him heaven comes in the long used musical
tradition. The middle aged man looks
around at the present; he has found out
that it is a hard world he hopes less, works
more The old man looks back ON the field
he has trod this is the tree planted this
is my footstep;" and he loves his old home,
his carriage, cat, dog, staff and friend. In
lands where the vine grows, have seen an
old man sit all day long, a sunny autumn
day, before his cottage door, in great arm
chair, his old dog crouched at his feet the
genial sun. The autumn winds played in
the old mans venerable hairs above him
on the walls, purpling in the sunlight, hung
the full clusters Of the grape, ripening
and maturing yet more. The two were just
alike, the wind stirred the vine leaves and
they fell stirred the old mans hair and it
whitened yet more. Both were waiting for
the spirit in them to be fully ripe. The
young man looks forward-the old man looks
back. How long the shadows lie in the set
ting sun; the steeple mile long, reaching
across the plain; as the sun stretches out the
hills in grotesque dimensions. So are the
events of life in the old mans consciousness.
G. p. r. JAMEs-The following incident
in the life of the late G. P. r. james is rela
ted on the credit of zone of his oldest and
most intimate literary friends" E
"When Mr.. James was young man his
cousin was about to marry the daughter of
an eminent lawyer of the time, and the title
deeds of this old genteman's entailed prop.
erty were, at the request of the father Of the
young lady, submitted to his examination
The keen lawyer discovered that the parents
of the gentleman, although moving in the
best society of London, had never been mar
ried Mr.. James was made acquainted with
this awkward fact, and at the same time in
formed that he himself was the heirat-law.
The match was about to be broken of, and
much distress occasioned ON every side, when
Mr.. James having quietly taken possession Of
the property, went at once to the unhappy
young man, his relative, and conveyed to him
the whole of the property, which amounted
to very handsome independence.