Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1864-01-14
Old Age.

l cannot tell where childhood ends, and
manhood begins; nor where manhood ends,
and old age begins. 1t is a wavering and I'M
certain line, not straight and definite, which
borders betwixt the two. But the outward
characteristics of old age are obvious enough
The weight diminishes. Man is commonly
heaviest at forty, woman at fifty. After that
the body shrinks a little; the height shortens
as the cartilages become thin and dry. The
hair whitens and falls away. The frame
stoops, the bones become smaller, feebler,
have less animal and moye mere earthly mat
ter. The senses decay, Slowly and handsome
ly. The eye is not so sharp, and while it
penetrates further into space, it has less
power clearly to define the outline of what it
sees The ear is dull the appetite less
Bodily heat is lower; the breath produces
less carbonic acid than before The old man
consumes less food, water, air. The hands
grasp less strongly; the feet less firmly tread.
The lungs suck the breast of heaven with
less powerful collapse. The eye and ear take
not so strong hold upon the world:
And the big manly voice,
Turning again to childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.
The animal life is making ready to 90 out.
The very old man loves the sunshine and the
fire, the armchair and the shady nook. A
rude wind would jostle the full-grown apple
from its bough, full-ripe, full-colored, too.-
The internal characteristics correspond. Gen
eral 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
he keeps at home Passion once stung him
into quickened life now that gad-fy is no
more buzzing in his ears. Madame de Stael
finds compensation in science for the decay OF
the passion that once fired her blood; but
Heather Socrates, seventy years old, thanks
the gods that he is now free from that craven
Gus beast" which had disturbed his philo-
sophie meditatons for many year. Ro-
nance is the child of Passion and Imagina-
ton; the sudden father that, the long pro-
tracing mother this. Old age has little ro-
nance. Only some rare man, like Wilhelm
Won Humboldt, keeps it still fresh in his
bosom.
In intellectual matters, the venerable man
who loves to recall the old times, to revive
his favorite old men-no new ones half so fair
So in Homer, Nestor, who is the oldest of the
Greeks, is always taking of the old times, be-
fore the grandfathers of the men then living
had come into being; "nst such as live in
these degenerate days" Verse loving John
Quincy Adams turns off from Byron and Shell
ley and Wieand and Goethe, and returns to
Pope,
Who pleased his childhood and informed his youth.
The pleasure of hope is smaller, that of memo
~ creator. 1t is exceedingly beautiful that
it is so. The venerable man loves to set rec
objection to beat the rol-cal, and summon up
from the grave the old time, " the good old
time, the old places, old friends ola games,
old talk, nav, to his ear, the old familiar tunes
are sweeter than anything that Mendelsshon,
or Strauss, or Rossini can bring to pass. Ell
der Brewster expects to hear St. Martius and
Old Hundred chanted in Heaven. Why not !?
To him Heaven comes in the long-used musi-
cal tradition, not in the neologies Of sound
Then the scholar becomes an antiuuary ::
he likes not young men unless he knew their
grandfathers before. The young woman
looks in the newspaper for the marriages, the
old man for the deaths. The young mans
eye looks forward; the world is &C all before
does not know it; he works but little, and
hopes much. The middle aged man looks
around at the present; he has found out that
it is hard world; he hopes less and works
more. The old man looks ok on the fields
he has trod this is the tree planted this
is n1y footstep," and he loves his old house,
his old carriage, cat, dog, staff and friend
In lands where the vine grows, I have seen
an old man sit all day long, sunny autumn
| day, before his cottage door, in great arm
| chair, his old dog crouched at his feet, in the
| genial sun. The autumn wind played with
| the old mans venerable hairs: above him on
| the wall, purpling in the sunlight, hung the
full cluster of the grape, ripening and matur-