The Douglas independent. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 187?-1885, 1880-11-20
Living too Long.

1
| Generally speaking, one of the la
and least of our anxieties is that we ms
live too long. Throughout youth an
maturity the prospect of longevity
very apt o be pleasant, for the thin
J itself seems desirable-for more SO in til
J distance than If at hand. But even whe
it is upon ms, with all it's burdens an
J impotencies, We are prone to cling {
life, as still we call it, though it ha!
strictly, ceased to be life, having becom
mere vegetation. That we should war
to live while we have health, physica
and mental; are in possession OF all on
faculties; are able to do some good; ar
fitted to impart and receive satisfaction
is entirely natural and reasonable Blu
that the wish should continue afte
everything that should excite it has gone
appears, or would appear, strange, wer
not the fact so notorious.
Comparatively few men are glad to sur
render existence, notwithstanding th,
ostensible loss of its final allurements O.
its slightest compensation. The habit o
life may have grown SO strong by contin
| nance that they can not complacentl,
contemplate breaking it; or the grea
hopefulness which incites and delude.
! us from the cradle to the grave
may yet whisper in their dull car its
fiattering tale. Be the cause what il
may, old age, joined to discrepitude
| seldom has for its sufferers the irksome.
ness that it has for its observers. Men,
| in other words, do not know as rule,
| when they have lived too long, and in
| their earlier years do not fear old age as
| they should They cannot imagine,
while vigorous, ambitious, full of plans
and purposes, that they shall be in time
feeble, needless, dwelling only on the
past, wearisome with endless repetitions.
Their egotism prevents such anticipa-
ton, as it prevents their understanding
of their senility, after it has come, and
the extreme tediousness it entails upon
their kindred and friends. Weight of
years so impairs their faculties, 80 OBJ
scures their judgement, SO changes their
angle of vision, that they never suspect
their dotage. Self-Iove, which yields to
death alone, misinterprets their waning
nature to their scattered intelligence.
Through it garruity becomes eloquence;
tribes assume Importance; iteration
shows like wisdom; ordinary hum-drum
experience assemblies illustrious history
Old age is, in its usual aspects, the
reverse of attractive. 1t may beget
pity, but it expels sympathy and an
nuls interest. 1t ought to have twenty
times the terror of death, which is so
mysterious, so impenetrable as to be in
vested with certain dignity often abb
sent from, and impossible to, old age.
Old age, generally venerated through
out civilization, is very frequently not
venerable. It needs, in many cases,
constant reflection and exercise of char
ity to check disesteem and hinder ridi-
cule. In and of itself, it is neither
beneficial nor interesting, and many
who claim to honor it simply tolerate
it, and secretly wish the while that it
may not be too protracted. 1t may be
beautiful and lovable, helpful and in
spring, up to certain point; but the
point once passed. its late lingering
charms fade forever.
Young old age, to name it such, has its
compensations, even its enticements.
But old, old age is dreary and distressing
enough. If we could see it as common
ly before we have reached it, We should
most earnestly beg of Fortune to pre-
serve us from its priyations and penal
ties. Should we not rather drop sud-
denly from a career of high satisfaction
and wide usefulness, with promise un-
redeemed, with future bright and beck
oning. than to go on to its ample fulfill
ment and then steadily decay, becoming
only mournful memento of o past
which should satirize our present? To
die in the midst of laudable activity, of
enterprises uncompieted, of radiant
dream ~ unrealized. may be very sad
4 - . %<.c
vive ones self, to drag about superan-
nuated body after all that is best in it
has been buried. Premature death is
| sure to be regretted by many; the dead
are like to be idealized for what they
have done, especially for what they
| might have done. But oyer-mature life
is a source of sorrow that it had not
| ended sooner. To live too briefly may
be unfortunate, to live too long is posi-
lively calamitous.
Tt is not the very old the deerepit
alone who live too long. Many men,
and not few women. who have not ex-
ceeded middle age, who sometimes have
| not fairly passed their youth, have lived
too long They have survived thei,
reputation; they have come to great dis
| appointment, sorrow or shame; they
have neglected some brilliant oppor.
tunity to die; they have not made theil
exit at the proper time, on the proper
4 scene. They do not see their error unit
they look back, retrieval is then too late
There is no use then of their slipping of
the planet; nobody is watching Their
movement with mingled envy and ad
miration; nobody would note theil
/ absence. They feel this deeply, bitterly
they cannot help regretting that
nature and fortune had not been kinder
| that they had not got their cue from
| fate in the nick of time. They can now
see all the advantages of going out in
/ glory, instead of waiting for extinction
in emptiness and obscurity. There are
doubtless hundreds, perhaps thousands,
of men in every populous town, both at
| home and abroad, who can turn to the
past and see with clearness the hour and
/ place where they should have died
| Retrospection Eliminates their whole
career SO as to reveal with lustre tht
exact point or points whence their de
parture would have been accompanied
| with mingled honor and sorrow.
This is the mere worldly way of regard
ing life and its discontinuance. But it il
the way life is generally regarded by 9th
ers. We may be sentimental and vapit
respecting our ending, though we ar,
reasonable and philosophic about th'
| ending of those for whom we are no
| personally concerned. We think, in re
viewing the antecedants of any public
man, that we know when he should hay,
gone. We do not permit his small con
ceits or human weaknesses to distort ou
Judgment. So others see, if they talk
the trouble to take ourselves into nc
count, when we have walked too fa
upon the hard, crowded, struggling high
way leading to the grave. We canno
choose when we shall be born or unborn
vet the dullest of us can perceive tn
best season for the final exodus OF on
neighbors, as they can perceive our sea
SON. Youth has its destinations, its re
wards, its illusions; middle age its com
forts and compensations. We sorrow TO
those who pass away before many year
have fallen upon them. Nevertheless,
is far better that they should go earl
than linger late. More truth and wis
dom than we fancy lies in the utterance
ssIt is not all of life to live, nor all {
death TO die"
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