Year: 1874

worm in its cocoon. On the whole


take it that middle age is happier pc


rod than youth. In the entire circle o.


the year there are no days so delight


ful as those of fine October, when the


trees are bare to the mild heavens, and


the red leaves bestrew the road, and
you can feel the breath of winter, morn.
ing and evenin2-no days so calm, Sc
tenderly solemn, and with such rever.
ent meeknoss in the air. The lyrical
up-burst of the lark Mt such n time
would be homogeneous. The only
sounds suitable to the season are the
rusty cav of the homeward-sliding
rrook-the creaking of the vain return
is an "unrest which men miscall de-
light" and of that "unrest" youth is
for the most part composed. From that
middle age is free. The setting suns of
youth are crimson and gold the set
ting suns Of middle age


DO take sober coloring from an eye


That hath kept watch DER mans mortality.
Youth is the slave of beautiful faces,
and fine eyes, and silver-sweet voices
they distract, madden, alarm. To mid
die age they are but the gracefullest
statues, the loveliest poems. They de-
light but burn not. They awake no
passion, they heighten no pulse. And
the imaginative man Of middle age pos
sesses after fashion all the passionate
turbulence, all the keen delights of his
earlier days. They are not dcad-they
are dwelling in the ante-chamber of his
memory, awaiting his call ; and when
they are called they wear an ethereal
something which is not their own. The
muses. are the daughters of memory {;
youth is the time to love, but middle
age the period at which the best love
poetry is written. And middle age too
the early period of it, when man is
master OF his Instruments and knows
what he can do--is the best season of
intellectual activity. The playful ca.
pering flames of newly kindled fire is
a pretty sight but not nearly so cfGec-
tive-auy housewife will tell you--as
when the flames are gone and the whole
mass Of fuel has become caked into a
sober redness that emits Il steady glow.
There is nothing in this world which
time does not improve. A silver we'd
ding is better than the voice of the
Epitholamium. And the most beauti-
ful face that ever was is made yet more
beautiful when there is laid upon it the
reverence Of silver hairs.


There is a certain even-handcd JUS
tice in time; and for what he takes
away he gives us something in return.
lie robs us of elasticity of limb and
spirit, and in its place he brings tran
guilty and repose-Lhe mild autumnnl
weather of the soul. He takes away
hope, bu6 he gives us memory. And
the settled, unIluctuating atmosphere Of
mildle-age is no bad exchange for the
stOrmful emotions, the passionate cries
and suspenses OF the earlier day. The
constitutional melancholy of the mid
die aged man is a dim background on
which the pale flowers of life are brought
out in the teudercst relief. Youth is
the time for action. mddlc-age for
thought. in youth we hurriedly crop
the herbage; in middle-a9e, in shell
tered place, we chew the ruminative
cud. In youth, red handed, red-ankled,
with songs and shoutings, we gather in
the grapes in middlc-age, under our
own tig-trec, or in quiet gossip with
friend, we drink the wine free of all
turbid lees. Youth is a lyrical poet,
middle.age a quiet essayist, fond of re-
counting experiences and of appending
a moral to every incident. In youth
the world is strange and unfamiliar,
novel and exciting, everything wears
the face and garb of Il stranger; in mid
dlc-age the world is covered over with
Renaissance as with garment-it is
made homely with usage, it is made
sacred with graves. The middle-aged
man can go nowhere without treading
the mark Of his own footstep'. And in
middle-age, too-prOvlded the man has
been a good and an ordinarily happy
one--alOng with this mental tranquil
ty, there comes corresponding sweet
ness of the moral atmosphere He has
seen the good and evil that are in the
world, the ups and downs, the almost
general desire of the men and women
therein to do the right thing If they
could but see how-and he has learned
to be uncensoriOus. humane to attrb-





and to be chary Of imputing sweeping
and crnel blame He has a quiet smile
for the vain glorious boast; feeling of
respect for shabby-genteel virtues a
pity for the threard.bare garments
proudly worn, and for the napless hat
glazed into more than pristine brillian-
cy from frequent brushing after rain.
He would not be satirical for the world.
He has no finger of scorn to point at
anything under the sun. He. has
hearty "Amen" for every good wish,
aud in the worst cases he leans to yer
dict of not proven. Aud along with
this pleasant blandness and charity, a
certain grave, serious humor, ga smile
and tear on the lip i'll the cye," is no.
ticeable frequently in middle-aged per-
sons-a phase of humor peculiar to that
period OF life, as The chrysanthemum to
December. Pity lies at the bottom of
it, Just as pity lies, unsupported, at the
bottom of love. Perhaps this special
quality of humor-with its sadness of
tenderness, its mirth with the heart
ache, its gayety growing out of deepest
seriousness, like q crocus on childs
Grave-neVer approaches Lhorc oloSeiJ
the perfection than in some passages OF
Mr.. Hawthorne's writings-who was
middle-aged man from earliest boyhood.
And although midlIe-aged persons have
lost the actual possession Of youth, yet
in virtue of this humOr they compre-
hend it, see all around it, enter imagi..
natively into every sweet and bitter of
it. They wear the key memory at their
gjrdles, aud they can open every door
! in the chamber of youth. And it is also
in virtue OF this peculiar humor that
Mr.. Dickens Little Nell to the contra
ry-it is only middle.aged persons who
can, either az poets rs artists, create Tor
ms a child. There is No more beautiful