"
And yet withal life is very unhappy, whether we live amongst the
grumbling captains of the clubs, who are ever seeking and not finding
promotion; amongst the struggling authors and rising artists who never
rise; or among the young men who are full of riches, titles, places, and
honor, who have every wish fulfilled, and are miserable because they
have nothing to wish for. Thus the young Romans killed themselves after
the death of their emperor, not for grief, not for affection, not even
for the fashion of suicide, which grew afterwards prevalent enough, but
from the simple weariness of doing every thing over and over again. Old
age has passed such stages as these, landed on a safer shore, and
matriculated in a higher college, in a purer air. We sigh not for
impossibilities; we cry not:
"Bring these anew, and set me once again
In the delusion of life's infancy;
I was not happy, but I knew not then
That happy I was never doom'd to be."
We know that we are not happy. We know that life, perhaps, was not given
us to be continuously comfortable and happy. We have been behind the
scenes, and know all the illusions; but when we are old we are far too
wise to throw life away for mere _ennui_. With Dandolo, refusing a crown
at ninety-six, winning battles at ninety-four; with Wellington, planning
and superintending fortifications at eighty; with Bacon and Humboldt,
students to the last gasp; with wise old Montaigne, shrewd in his
grey-beard wisdom and loving life, even in the midst of his fits of gout
and colic--Age knows far too much to act like a sulky child.
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