The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1873-09-11
OF GROWING OLD.


Life In Its Earlier and Later Years.
Many of our readers, doubtless, have
read the paper OF ! eva. Fl. X. BOYD,
"0i Growing Old" contributed to Fra:
,ers Magazine many years ago, and print
ed in his "Recreations Ola Country Par.
SON." From aflate stand, point in life the
same gentleman Observation-Disclosures ar
licle on the same subject some para.
graphs Of which are especially excellent.
When are we growing oldG "A sound
judgment and stflct honesty are necessary
TO answer tue question fairly TO ones
self. Here Is what the Country Parson"
says of it:z Sg5 }El
"By growing iola now understand
reaching point midway between forty
and fifty; not without a tendency to get
nearer The latter ngea once hardly imag.
Unable as a personal really! And when
one has, in this grave sense, grown old.
Is there any fact which Is more pressed
upon one than this: that there. Is such o
long look. back now? The prospect
stretches far. Memory Is still keen and
retentive; the distant prospect has not
faded into mistiness; and as you 60 on,
and now and then turn 70, look back,
there is Just SO much !addedIto the view.
Once /, was wonderful TO heara man talk
Of what he had done twenty years ago;
still more Of what had happened thirty
years ago. It seemed vast stretch OF
time, possible indeed in the experience oi
others, but uncomfortable in ones own.
For every human being lis like sidney's
shepherd.boy. in this, that he tails to take
In that be will ever grow. old. II seems
yesterday since the writer, reading tor
The bar (how much English. law lost in
him y diligently frequented Westminster
Hall and The Guildhall; and seeing vigor.
Gus barristers roaring away to common
iuries, or going on with cross examina-
ton In which every question began with
the sharp and minacious Now SIR! listen.
ed with wonder TO the assurance that the
vigorous balrister had worn q wig and
gown for twenty-five years, or i've and
thirty. Surely he ought to be dead long
ago. That was the reflection then. II is
different now, 1t has been, discovered
that time passes away to the amount oil
twenty years or more; but that lis really
avery short while; andit leaves the hu.
man beng not SO much changed; still
with the old likings, hopes and wishes;
SUI with the old weaknesses andsiaults;
still the same man. Furthermore, as
years accumulate behind one so does
work. You have done such a deal. II
mounts up into something awful to think
Of, And this though very much Of the
work done leaves no permanent trace, but
last suttlces TO do what is required by the
SSsy, and to keep the machinery going.
lou have written fourteen letters this
morning; you have visited eighteen. sick
iGks this afternoon! II had alto be done.
had you not dope It, you would have
peen miserable In the sense 81, duty neg
!ected. But there Is nothing to show for
u Its not like the abiding pages Of in
eslimable theology yor mild morality
which, being written, you lay up ID aboa
The abiding memorial Of past labor. Il
heightened one, in the old days, TO heal
men In advanced Ilife!speak OF the worl
hey had done. remember the sense
awe with which heard o. clergyman o
ABOUT sixty years mention (withIno air o.
recording an exploit) that no had at one
period OF his lie written ono hundred gpl
nlty lectures on StiIiukes Gospel.rs
gszed upon him with the feeling, And or,
you there living totell hE-
To this may beladdedthat whensa per
son begins to look backward instead q