Huntsville gazette., 1889-07-13
They Are Beyond Selfishncss and Have
Forgotten Envy.


The old are also notoriously strong
in matters Of judgment, even though
their knees. be weak. What so pleasur-
able as to sit in the seat of a censor?
Is man ever too old afor the bench?
The longevity and the haleness of our
more considerable lawyers are con-
vincing testimony for the advantage
BUSINESS of their position. But every
old man stands towards the commun-
ity at large like judge toward his
criminals. Each year broadens his
horizon, extends his pleasure and his
pastime. Methuselah was man i'm
mensely to be envied. What varied
lore, what an endless series of gradu-
ated pictures he must have stored
within him as the centuries passed
and left him high and dry among his
pigmy fellow-men!
Nothing is easier, it may be said,
than to cast together the evils which
commonly wait upon old age and
thereby to prove that it is absurd to
suppose that happiness can exist in
the midst Of them. OF course nothing
is easier than to catalogue these pos
sible Affections; but, on the other
hand. | contend with my betters, that
happiness, cOntentment. or what you
please to call the ''summum bonum"
we strive for, is quite Independent of
these Affections. The prudent person,
when old, expects to be tried in this
way. He is prepared, and that is half
the battle. Nor must it be forgotten
that even as his energies have waned
with his Increase of years so also has
his body changed into condition well
suited to bear physical trials which in
his youth would have been insuffera-
BILE. AS STRIPPING he grumbled with
out ceasing when a toothache or a
sprained ankle kept him within doors /;
as an octogena rian the chair to which
he is confined good manJ hours Of
the day is to him BY far the most com
Portable place in all the world; nor
would he exchange it for the Pope's
throne, If the throne were only to be
won by journey to Rome.
But to return to the moral asrect of
the matter. Is it not fact that a
good mans goodness increases as he
grows older? There is nothing in the
world more venerable than good old
man or woman. Surely that is much,
for are not respect and affection just
the two things for which we fight
hardest during the fighting part Of our
career? And they may be acquired
without effort.
ut is only older people, after all,
who are quite unselfish, and feel the
greatest pleasure in witnessing the
happiness of Others" Miss Thackeray
was right when she wrote this. 1t
constitutes the keenest JOY ofreverend
old age; JOY to which the wild intox
icants, which in youth we call pleas
ures, are as nothing at all. 1t i
almost impossible, made as we are, for
the young to be disinterestedly happy
in the happiness Of others. Envy and
jealousy are ever on the alert to mar
such divine possibility. But the
old are doubly gladdened by the visi-
bic JOY OF others. They are generous
enough to rejoice because others are
profited. And this is not cynicism-
they often also find cause to congratu-
late themselves that their own snug
tranquility is not in peril of being dis
turbed by the like boisterous agents
Of felicity.
1t is for their peace and resignation
that | most admire the old. They
have attained Nirvana. The worlds
game, confessedly not an amazing one,
is known to them. They are on the
heights of Pisgah, whereas we are
warning on the plain, or groaning in
the valleys about the tedium Of our
days.-All the Year Round.