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| Truly we are not of their number. |
If we do not wish to dance, why do we envy those who do? If a dried date does not taste to us now rich with all spicy flavors of unknown lands, but like a commonplace sweetmeat, compensation comes in the fact that we have no craving for the date. And yet it seems to be insufficient compensation: we wish we had that craving, remembering the pleasure of its satisfaction. We are not like the old proverb's dog in the manger, that neither wants a thing himself nor is willing that another should have it; on the contrary, we are much more like the little boy who eats his cake and wants it, too. Nothing would .induce us to forego the various happinesses of the period to which we have arrived, the calmness and repose, the clear-headed comprehension of vexed problems, the wealth of memory, the power of looking out on the world and not only seeing as in youth, but of summarizing and philosophizing on what we see. Yet, for all that, we remember how round was the cheek of youth, how delicious was life at the dawning; and here is the shadow of the unknown future beginning to fall over us, and full soon shall we feel the breath of the dark river; and we see fresh meaning in the words of the old preacher: "'Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun, but if a man live many years and rejoice in them all, yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. " As the monarch considers a demand for the surrender of his scepter, so do we hate to lay down our sovereignty, to retreat as the new generation becomes regnant, to become not only the mere commoners and superannuaries of the present, but the pensioners of the past, to feel, perhaps, a passing remembered and reflected thrill of the keen, quick joy at the fragrance of a wind, at bell notes on the evening air, at so many other delightful things that once we felt in full, to feel, when that wind blows, and that bell rings, and that love story is sung, and that evening air grows purple, that our thrill is only the memory of the thrills of years and years ago, to know that a multitude of choicest pleasures now are no more the objects of actual experience, but are only an impalpable procession of bloodless ghosts.
But for all that, the past was not so perfect when it was the present that we need to compare it too strenuously with today. While that itself was the present there was much amiss with it. It is true that when we were very young every object in creation seemed gilded with the glory of our own dawn. At morning we used to feel that it was going to be morning all day, with blue sky and sparkling dew and flower scents and freshness; but at noon we hardly remembered another joy than those under the meridian ; and our only shadow of vexation was that night must needs come to put an end to it all But when we ceased to be very young how sorry we sometimes were to open our eyes and find it morning! How glad we were fain to be when night came and brought another day to its close! Fortunate they who, in middle life and in still more advanced years, carry the morning always with them, and love the hour, whatever it may be, and the fortune it brings with it.
Yet, sooth to say, there are very few of us who bring our ideals up to the end with us all unbroken. The mists of early day magnify the objects we see through them. This fruit is sweeter to the virgin palate than it ever will be to the taste accustomed to all impressions ; that flower scent never can be found again ; that music on the water never sounds to us, now that even-song has sung, as it did when blown on the winds of morning. When Henry Esmond met Father Holt, after he had grown to be a man, he "smiled to think that this was his oracle of early days, only now no longer infallible or divine."
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| "Count them by sensation and not by calendars, and each moment is a day." Disraeli |
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