New Iberia enterprise and independent observer. (New Iberia, La.) 1902-1944, 1905-10-14
YOUTH, AGE AND THE ASHES OF
DESTINY.

Outn sees through IOsy SlaSsoo anu
the bleak and lovely of life alike take
on delicate, mellow tones, elusive
ghosts of color beyond the power OF
any material brush. Old age through
failing of sight, looks at life through
fawless spectacles, which keens the
vision and reveals vivid pictures
sharply defined contrasts in light and
shade and melancholy monotones in
gray.
Sorrows banner is gray, symbolic
| ing the mist of tears, the sunless yes
terdays Of the regret that mingles its
tears with sorrow. Black to give tc
grief, deep, tragic, inconsolable-
grief that no word may measure, not
plummet sound that no one may com
fort, that nothing may Tighten save
the touch of God. These differences
in heart pain enable US to lapse natur'
ally from gray to black, like the east,
ern sky at sunset.
Grief is tragedy, sorry an inter
meZzo of tears. In some lives both are
combined, and we have either soul
that rises triumphant from its lacera-
ton or one that, hopelessly over
whelmed, utters plaintive cry OF
pain and vanishes into the eternal to-
morrow. A Brooklyn septuagenarian
who had gathered for long years found
himself beyond the allotted years OF
man, not holding the rare blooms OF
life, but rank weeds. Then he sent
bullet into his head, having first
penned this message to his son:
"You can't have things as you
want them. In your old days you
can't have them that way. You've
got to prepare in your youth for that
time when your hair turns gray. Ii
1 had it all to do over again l would
have quite different ending. But
that is impossible now, so must go. -
Happy old age, it will be seen owes
an inestimable debt to youth. The
stripping, flushed with confidence,
who steps forth into the world OF
stress and Struggle carries in his hands
all the secret of the future, though
he may not divine what will follow
in the end.
Time, rich in potentialities, one
minute of which is sometimes worth
an eternity, men dissipate with the
prodigal spirit OF the spend thrift.
Time is our brief but priceless herit-
age, and he who lives no idle, no uu
productive moment, is he who builds
for a symmetrical life, rounded into
that content which shapes old age
into bendiction.
Senator Platt in his seventy-two
years voices the lament of this Brook
Ign man who brought to his disap-
pointment a pathetic weakness. The
one stands strong and drugged in his
failure; the other was overcome.
They are as stern admonition to the
strong and the weak who go out in
the poisoning fields of worth while
to "gather handfuls while we may"
a lesson that life is thing of purpose
and that no one may disregard the
sterling and true without eventually
bearing bitter penalty.
Peace may be the award that awaits
at the end of the way, and peace may
come to us in the severe reaches Of
the troubled journey. To him who
loves nature, despite the forces, which
break with harsh discords into his
existence, life cannot be wholly TN
lovely. He may reap along the way
that which will be realized at its full
ness at the end. Benson, an English
poet, in his recent verse.
''By the Wier," sounds with COM
polling charm, this ncte:
"Ah me but we forget to liye
We sell sweet days for wealth and
pride;
And when we have no more to give,
The soul is still unsatisfied!
Well, have labored, have planned;
For once my plans, my labors cease,
God lays to-day a loving hand
Upon my shoulder. saying
Peace!'' New York Telegram.