Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1908-04-24
COURTESY FROM THE YOUNG TO THE OLD.
BY MARION HARLAND.

OF course. elderly people like to
talk. Why should they not be allowed
TO do 1t? The boy or girl listener is
impatient of what he or she terms in
"ardly "garrulousness." Is not the
prattle Of youth as trying to old peo-
pie! But, to do them justice, unless
.ney are very Grabbed, they listen to
1t kindly.
Unfortunately one seldom sees a
young person rise and remain standing
Wnen an old person enters the room.
yet to Toll back in a chair under such
circumstances is one of the greatest
rudenesses Of which a girl or boy is
capable.
Right here may put in a plea for
the old man? In the first place. he is
not as popular as the old woman. She
II often beloved: he poor soul!
Is too often endured. In very truth he
is not so lovable as his lady wife. He
did not take the time while he was
young to cultivate the little niceties of
life as she did. Women have more
regard for appearances than men have,
and their life is not spent so often in
counting-room and office; they are, in
their daily life, surrounded by refined
persons more than are their husbands;
they do not have to talk by the hour
with rough men, give orders to surly
underlings, eat at lunch counters, and
join In the morning and evening rush
for life to get seat In a crowded car
or train where the law is "Sauve qui
peut!" or, in brutal English, every
man for himself and''-no matter who
for the hindmost!" All these
things, after years and years, influence
the man or woman. It is inevitable.
1t even affects the inner life. The
Book Of books tells US that though the
outward man perish the inward man
Is renewed day by day. Some
times the inward man Is hardly
worth renewing at the end Of life
of such rush and mad haste after
the elusive dollar that there has been
no place for the gentle amenities of
existence. Therefore, as the man gets
old, his nature comes to the front, and,
too often, the courtesies that were
pinned on him by a loving wife, and
kept polished up by her, drop on and
he does not want to bother to have
them re-adjusted. Consequently, he Of
ten has habits that are not pretty. He
Is irascible; he Is intolerant with
youth, and, now that he Is laid aside,
he likes to tell of what he did when
he was as active as the young men
about him. Dear young people, let
him talk! Listen to him. and remem-
Der that at your age he was just as
agreeable as you. Consider, too, that
If, when you are old, you would es-
cape being the self-absorbed being you
think him, you would do well now to
begin to avoid the selfishness and self
absorption that you find make the old
man Objectionable. Practice on him,
and he will in his old age still be do
ing a good work.
1t is not pleasant to feel old, to know
that you are set aside in the minds Of
others as "a has been" There are few
more cruel lessons given to human
beings to learn IN this hard school We
cali life. And this task has to be
learned when strength and courage
wane, and the grasshopper is bur-
den. II young people would only make
is unnecessary for the older person to
acquire it! It does with youth to
make the declining years Of those near
the end of the journey a weary waiting
for that end, or peaceful lettering on
road that shall be foretaste OF q
Land in which no one ever grows old
The Home Magazine.