" To others the sight would only give visions of the coming
Spring and future Summer; to him it told of the past year, the last
Christmas, the days which would never come again--the so many days
nearer the grave. Thackeray continually expressed the same feeling. He
reverts to the merry old time when George the Third was king. He looks
back with a regretful mind to his own youth. The black Care constantly
rides, behind his chariot. "Ah, my friends," he says, "how beautiful was
youth! We are growing old. Spring-time and Summer are past. We near the
Winter of our days. We shall never feel as we have felt. We approach the
inevitable grave." Few men, indeed, know how to grow old gracefully, as
Madame de Stael very truly observed. There is an unmanly sadness at
leaving off the old follies and the old games. We all hate fogyism. Dr.
Johnson, great and good as he was, had a touch of this regret, and we
may pardon him for the feeling. A youth spent in poverty and neglect, a
manhood consumed in unceasing struggle, are not preparatives to growing
old in peace. We fancy that, after a stormy morning and a lowering day,
the evening should have a sunset glow, and, when the night sets in, look
back with regret at the "gusty, babbling, and remorseless day;" but, if
we do so, we miss the supporting faith of the Christian and the manly
cheerfulness of the heathen. To grow old is quite natural; being
natural, it is beautiful; and if we grumble at it, we miss the lesson,
and lose all the beauty.
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