The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1874-04-30
THE MAN OF FORTY-FIVE.

THE MAN OF FoRTY-FIVE.
The discovery of gray hair when
you are brushing out your whiskers of
a morning first fallen flake of the
coming SHOWS Of age-is n disagreeable
thing. SO is the intimation from your
old friend and comrade that his eldest
daughter is about to be married. So
are flying twinges of gout, shortness of
breath on the hillside, the fact that
even the moderate use of your friends
wines at dinner upsets you. These
things are disagreeable because they
tell you that you are no longer young
that you have passed through youth,
are now in middle age, and faring on
ward to the shadows in which, some
where, a grave is hid.
Thirty is the age Of the gods-and
the first gray hair Informs you that you
are at least ten on twelve years Older
than that. Apollo is never middle
aged, but You are. Olympus lies seve-
raj years behind you. You have lived
for more than half your natural term
and you know the road which lies be-
fore you is very different from that
which lies be ind. You have yourself
changed. In the present man of forty
five you can barely recognize the boy
of nineteen that once was. Hope sang
on the sunny slope Of life's hill as You
ascended she is busily singing the old
song in the ears of new generation
but You have passed ont of the reach Of
hcrvOice. You have triedyour strength;
you have learned precisely what you
can do you have thrown the hammer
SO often that you know to an inch how
far you can throw it-at least you are a
great fool if you do not. The world,
too, has been looking on and has made
up her mind about you. She has ap-
prised and valued you as an nuctioneer
apprises and values an estate or the fur
niture of house. "Once you served
Prince Florizcl and wore three pile, .
but the brave days of campaigning are
over. What to yon are canzonets and
love,songs? The mighty passion is
vapid and secondhand. Cupid will
never more futter rosily yover your head;
at most he will only llutter i'll an unin-
spired fashion above the head of your
daughter-in-law. You have sailed round
the world, seen all its wonders, and
come home again, and must adorn your
dwelling as best you can with the rare
things you have picked up on the way.
At life's table you have taste | of every
dish except the covered one, and of that
you will have your share by yand-by.
The road over which you are fated to
march is more than half accomplished,
and at every onward stage the scenery
is certain to become more somber, and
in due time the twilight will fall. To
you, on your onward journey, there will
be little to astonish, little to delight.
The interpreters house is behind whore
you first read the poets so is also the
house beautiful with the three damsels
where you first learned to love. AS You
pass onward you are attended by your
Memory, who may be either
the cheerfulest or gloomiest of COM
panions. You have come up ont of the
sweet smelling valley-fowers you are
now on the broken granite, scanned and
wrnkled, with dried up water-courses
and before you, striking you full in the
face, is the broad disk of the solitary
setting sun.
The man of forty-five or thereby is
compelled to own, if he sits down to
think about it, that existence is very
different from what it was twenty years
previously. His life is more than half
spent to begin with. He is like one
who has spent seven hundred and fifty
pounds of his original patrimOny of n
thousand. Then from his life there has
departed that " wild freshness of morn
ing" which Tom Moore sang about. In
his onward journey he is not likely to
encounter ANYTHING absolutely new.
lie has already corrugated every tense
of the verb To BE. He has been in
love twice or thrice. He has been mar
ried-only once, let us trust. In all
probability he is the father of fine
family of children he has been i'll, and
he has recovered; he has experienced
triumph and failure; he has known
what it is to have money in his purse,
aud what it is to want money in his
purse. Sometimes he has been debtor,
sometimes he has been creditor. He
has stood by the brink of half dozen
graves, aud heard the clo1 falling on
the conin-lid. All this he has expert
enced the ouly new thing before him
is death, and even to that he has at va
rious times approximated. Life has
lost most Of its unexpectedness. its
zest, its novelty, and become like a
worn shoe or thread-bare doublet.
To him there is no new thing under the
sun. But then this growing old is a
gradual process and zost, sparkle and
novelty are not essential to happiness.
The man who has reached fve-and-
forty has learned what a pleasue there
- IN customariness and use and won't
in having everything around him famil-
lar, tried, confidential. Life NAV have
become humdrum, but his tastes have
become humdrum too. Novelty an.
noys him, the intrusion of an unfamil-
lar object puts him ont. A pair of new
ly embroidered slippers would be much
more ornamental than the well-worn
articles which lie warming for him be.
fore the library fire; but then he can
not get his feet into them so easily.
He is contented with his old friendsEa
new friend would break the charm of
the old familiar faces. He loves the
hedgerows and the fields and the brook