The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1919-07-09
OLD ACE IS SEEN AS
BEST PERIOD OF LIFE
View Is Advanced Which Challenges Conventional Ide

VI vl6W ~ AOVdUC0O W0lC0 "
II IL be asked, what IL the best
| period of lifc?'' I will answer ''old
age In taking this view I know
am challenging conventional ideas
and the extravagant rhapsodies OF
masculine poets. says Lucian in the
Rochester Post Express. But I am
convinced that I am right. and am
not afraid to find myself in antag-
onism to the great army of senti-
mentalists and instinctiveness who
+, never think because they are gov
erned by mere emotion.
I In The Passionate Pilgrim" 4
! poem attributed to Shakespeare, II IL
said that Grabbed age and you can
not live together" With the senti-
rnens, whether il emanated from
| Shakespeare or not, ! have no SYM
pathy. Age Is not necessarily
Grabbed" nor is youth always free
from harshness. 1t Is certainly often
crude. and age, at its best, is mel
low.
The reiuvenescence of septuagena-
rians and octogenarians appears to
me nothing better than a good joke.
We cannot put back the hands Of the
, clock But why should we be such
| ACCaS as ~ oS W put tHGHi bd1k we
must grow old unless we die young
and we cannot all belong to the
class whom the Greeks supposed to
| be loved by the gods.
| The saying that "a man is as old
as he feels and a woman as old as
| she looks" must have been the in
vention OF some elderly male TOP. A
woman's age is a delicate subject, but
| I venture to say that in everything
save physical attraction a woman of
! so lis superior to a girl OF 20. Her
mind is more developed: her judgm ent
. is riper her attitude toward both
men and woman is more tolerant and
hef affections are deeper.
OF course we do not all live up to
/ our years. Some men are physically
and mentally old at rs. This may be
either because they were born with
very little youthful energy or be-
cause they spent whatever energy they
had too quickly. On the other hand,
some men are in the splendid physical
health at so, and are still advancing
/ rather than declining mentally. These
| are the persons who have not been
| prodigals of their developing powers.
Our unhappy tendency Is to waste IA
lures gifts, and. even II we husband
! them like misers. we need somthing
more. for has Matthew Arnold wisely
said:
Man must begin, know this, where
Nature ends;
Nature and man can never be fast
friends.
! Fool, II thou canst not pass her. rest
her slave
The time task of each man and
| woman Is to conquer Nature-to bend
her to the individual will. She uses
the feeble and the passionate as her
instruments but the strong and the
wise dominate her as the lion tanner
dominates the lion. II is not true as
the poet / have just quoted assures
us, that youth and age have only one
thing in mon--discontent." The
young are generally restless and dis
satisfied, but the old. unless they are
imbecjles. are resigned to IRE in
cvitable.
Cicero in his dialogue entitled DE
Senectude" makes one of his inter-
locutors say that all men wish to
attain old age and vet complain OF
the fact that they have attained It
He adds that one Of the grievances
Of the old is that age steals over
them more rapidly than they expect
prevent time from passing and tina
even il we lived 500 instead of eight,
years the pase time, however, long
cannot when 1t has flown away b.
able te "soothe with any consolation
for an old age or folly
Cato, the principal speaker in thu
dialogue. declares that the best wa,
. is to follow nature. He even sees ar
, advantage In emancipation from thu
love of pleasure when one Is old. TIL,
lusts of the flesh are, he remarks, re
sponsible for many crimes-treason
5 the ruin of states and dishonesty H,
a finds in old age the saner pleasure o
, intellectual conversation and sobe
D reflection. Finally Cato speaks o
j, old age as "Peractio aetatis tamqu
: fabulae'--the contamination OF exist
e ence just as of a story--from tn
r fatigue of which we ought to escape
r especially when safety is superadded
We must qualify these words. TO
Cicero was a pagan. though man o
exquisite culture. and he could no
fsee that the true ideal is to live 81
on earth that We may be worthy o
:. Heaven. The Christian should tax
a nobler view of old age.
Waller seventeenth century poet
wrote the following beautiful line
on the value of ages deep insigh
when he was III
TIE seas are quiet when the wind
give DER;
i, So calm we know how vain it is 4
boast
: OF feeting things, so certain to b
lost
: Clouds OF affection from our younge
, eyes,
/, Conceal that emptiness which ag'
a decries.
The souls dark cottage, batter'd an,
decay'd,
= Lets in new light through chink
that time has made:
, Stronger by weakness, wiser men be
come,
. AS they drew near. to their eterna
home,
Leaving the old, both worlds at ono
they view
That stand upon the threshold Of tn
: new.