Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1891-10-16
DISSERTATIONS OF A RETIRED

Meeting friends of our youth after years of
separation may be said to be one of the tri-
ais of old age. know this is very poor sell
timent. l know that it is in opposition to
all the rules laid down in novels. But the
hard fact is that SO far from rushing into
over with old memories of the past, one
has hard time making conversation for
them. 1t is not strange. We are changed
and they are changed. We have been
these twenty years in different worlds, SO
to speak-certainly on different roads in
this world. If both were frank they
would own up that they are not the same
people, and that the tremendous joke over
which the boy of twenty laughed for
hours, does not appeal to the man of
fifty Oh the woman Of fifty-if history re-
cords any woman that ever reached that
age. Nor are the tremendous jokes left
alone in their desolation. 1t is also true
of the most tender situations. Alas, it is
lions, the love passages Of youth. After
we have grown old we look back over them
without single emotion, and as things
that, like scarlet fever and the rash, must
all come and go in a life time. Why am I
writing about old friends, if [ cannot make
myself more agreeable than this }? Well,
because [ met some lately at the opera. Old,
old friends that [ used to see thirty years
ago; in the primitive days, when the fash
ionables used to sit on the front TOW of
seats in the boxes, whether it was a full
dress night OF not. Those friends of other
days came trooping in just as they did
thirty years ago. There was the same
CROSS for the chorus to kneel around and
sing the prayer; the same one-plank
bridge to be chopped down by the
gypsey fleeing with the child; the
same Thaddeus with his oppressive fur
trimmed costume in August. All just as
1t was when was youth. The manage
ment had advertised something else, but
the Bohemian Grip had been substituted
for it and with her came my friends of
other days. | knew them all by heart, for
when [ was a youth this was about the
first English opera that was popular in this
country. 1t all came back to me. There
was the same old stage rest. The tenor came
forward with the same one step at q time,
The chief of the orchestra looks over his
spectacle as he plays the first notes of the
accompaniment and then All Heaven, my
old, old friend, "Then you'll remember
me-" 1t is true it was changed 1t is true
that, owing to to the pronunciation, the
opening verse ran somewhat this way:
'.Ven oder leeps and oder harris
Dere tales of loft shall tell
In lonquich ooze aixcaiss impairts,
Der loft they feel SO ven.''
But for all that l knew it. The inesti-
mable superiority of an aria as an old ac-
of thirty years, is that you don't have to
ask, is this Jones that l used to know at
the bank Oh is it his son? OF is it his grand
son? You are not subjected to mortifica-
ton by an aria saying pertly to you, "Oh
/ expect it was my father you Knew
or-if the young fellow is devoid of all
sense Of propriety-''my grandfather. :"
No; here was my old friend with every
note. with every semi demi quaver, and
so sweetly sung withall All, have not
heard her sing it? 1t was a pretty con-
ceit of hers-for young girls seem to come
naturally by the prettiest conceits to turn
young fellows heads-to make 1T sort of
Good night when my visits ended. How
it upset my weak head many night, and
kept me awake long after l got home,
Remember her Would the day ever come
that 1 could forget her? Was not this
my first, my last, my only. love, and after
this would not the world come to an end !
Remember her At the Opera House that
night, the others saw the tenor in his pur-
pie tights, but IL saw the little summer
parlor and the horse-hair sofa. and the
spermaccti candle with glass drops
around it. and the screen at the fire place
garlanded with ferns and honeysuckle and
roses, and the wall paper with the Landing
of Columbus in life size figures alternating
in panels with the TrOubadour'S Last
Farewell. And at the little, long piano
standing Oh llS lltlOSdlly non 5 ClaWS,
sitting with hair waved over her temples,
with the hair locket at her throat and
her white arms faint through the lawn
sleeves, was the only woman in the
world. What was it to me that in the
last notes of that sweetest of all good
nights she sang it, "Then you'll rer-
mehem hem hemhem hem bu r-r-r-r -uh
me.'' Or that in that other song, her
sweet voice said, Il der-rempt that 1
der-welt in mar -har-bul halls What was
it, say, to me, was it not who was at her