Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1877-03-16
TIL Old Experience doth attain
To something OF prophetic strain

10 something o. prophetic strain.
She seems to have been wise and thought.
ful, but by no means exceptional, woman in
anything but the unimpaired vigor of her
faculties at m age when the nerves and the
brain have usually gone before the body.
But then that is precisely the interest of her
case. Had she been very remarkable wo-
man IN early years, everybody would have
said that hers was selected life, a physi-
que of exceptional force, and that the un-
impaired yigor of her faculties in age was
due to the same exceptional causes which
gave her her great brllliancy in youth. But
as it is, excepting that the intellectual men
OF her youthful days found her a very fascin-
atlng woman,-a not uncommon experience
with regard to women who, like Lady Smith,
are at .once beautiful and amiable, there
was no unusual power in her. And hence,
OF course. the vast age 70 which she retained
her powers unimpaired-unless the defect of
vision which came upon her after her hun
dredth year be so accounted-promises the
more for the chance of other average men
and women retaining their mental vivacity
and interests to something like the same age.
1t Is not much encouragement to ordinary
men to know that man like Lyndhurst re-
tanned the power to review the politics of the
session with undiminished briliance till after
the age of eighty, for no man could have be-
come what Lord Lyndhurst became, without
possessing an exceptional amount of physi-
cal vigor from the first. But if Lady Smith
were exceptional at all, it was not shown in
any overflow of youthful or mature energy,
but only in the peculiar durability of the en-
ergy she had; and if durability be due, as it
may be due, to some special congenital quali-
ty, no one need despair of possessing that
quality till the facts show that lie is wrong;
while If 1t be not due to any congenital
quality, but only to the prudence with which
lie Is regulated, there is still more reason to
hope that others may he able to follow Lady
Smiths example.
But the interesting question, after all, is
not so much what chance have we of living
to anything like Lady Smiths age IN the pos
session OF equally unimpaired iaculties,- Tor
every one must feel that such chance is
very small, but rather, what chance have
we OF retaining anything like Lady Smiths
serenity and cheeriulness, if We do live to
her age,-for that Is a matter more likely to
be within our own power, and very closely
connected, too, with the other, for had Lady
Smith been apt TO fret and brood over the
isolation of her position, she could hardly
have retained her undiminshed mental pow
er TO the age she did. For the tull enjoy
ment of old age, there must evidently be a
somewhat unique moral nature rs well as a
unique physique, and it Is possible enough
that 1t may be deficiencies of that nature
much more than any deficiency of physical
energy which SO often cause old men and
women to fret or brood themselves into pre-
mature appoplexy, or premature exhaustion
nature eyincing the highest degree of i'll
tenslty and individuality of the affections is
ODylDnSy y not fitted tp lva ,n IN, VI a
age without suffering great wear and tear
through very eZhausting griefs. nature
that always Graves the excitement of action,
thnt Is never happy except when welding
practical influence over others. is obviously
unhtted to live on to such an age without
suffering great wear and tear through impa-
uence bred of enforced inuction A mature,
again, very conservative in its habits, one
without high adaptGbility and elasticity in it,
cannot change sufficiently with the times to
conform to new modes of life and new modes
of thought, without an amount of irritation
which would hardly be consistent with un-
impaired energy, and certainly not with un-
impaired serenity. "To grow old in nm age
you condemn" is not n condition likely to I'M
fit you for IA serene evening of life. Perhaps
the best temperament for old age is that OF
such poet as Sophocles. whom,
Prom drst youth tested up to extreme old age,
Iusiness could not make dull nor pas sion wild,
Who saw life steadily and saw II whole,
The mellow glory OF the Attic stage.
Singer OF tweet COlOnus and his chid"
or of such poet as Goethe,
"Who took the suffering human race.
And read each wound, each wsak ness clear
And struck his finger on the place,
And said. Thou ailest here and here
Ho looked on Europe's dying hour
OF htiul dream and ieyerish power.
And said, The end is every where,
Artstill has truth,-take refuge there
And he was happy. il TO know
Causes OF things, and Tar below
His feet to see the lurid How
or troub Q and insane distress,
And headlOng fate. be ha ppness."
lucid sympathy with the changing lot of
humanity, II sympathy which does not go
deep enough to be passionate, but does 20
deep enough To fill the mind OF the thinker
with profound speculative interests, and oc-
cupy 1t with the constant play of sngacious
forecasts, is doubtless the hest sort of tenn
permanent for securing fully occupied and
vet not too anxious old age No doubt the
temperament of most poets IN their youth
must be one liable to so much feverish and
sensitive excitement that one would suppose
that excitement likely to discount certain
portion of the store of strength otherwise
available for their old age. But subject to
this imitation, we believe that the vivacity of
temperament which leads TO the deepest ar
tistic insight into human life IL kind of
temperament which Is to some extent incon-
sistent with, and IA substitute for, those too
clinging personal affections. the life of which
seems most to concentrate, and perhaps part
ly to exhaust the vital strength of the men
who (, 81 them, is the best kind for the hap
piness of old age. Lady Smith, of course
had not the large intellectual play Of mind of
n poet, but as iar as the notices of her life
have given us any knowledge of her. she
must have had a good deal of the temperu-
ment which adapts itself easily to new forms
of human activity. and which enters with
vivid, though gentle, glow of curiosity into
the changeiul story OF human destiny.