he Pretender.

I hope I do not appear to speak harshly of this amiable old man, and if
he is still living I wish him well, although his example was bad in some
respects. He had used tobacco for nearly a century, and the habit has
very likely been the death of him. If so, it is to be regretted. For
it would have been interesting to watch the process of his gradual
disintegration and return to the ground: the loss of sense after sense,
as decaying limbs fall from the oak; the failure of discrimination, of
the power of choice, and finally of memory itself; the peaceful wearing
out and passing away of body and mind without disease, the natural
running down of a man. The interesting fact about him at that time was
that his bodily powers seemed in sufficient vigor, but that the mind
had not force enough to manifest itself through his organs. The complete
battery was there, the appetite was there, the acid was eating the zinc;
but the electric current was too weak to flash from the brain. And yet
he appeared so sound throughout, that it was difficult to say that
his mind was not as good as it ever had been. He had stored in it very
little to feed on, and any mind would get enfeebled by a century's
rumination on a hearsay idea of the rebellion of '45.

It was possible with this man to fully test one's respect for age, which
is in all civilized nations a duty. And I found that my feelings were
mixed about him. I discovered in him a conceit in regard to his long
sojourn on this earth, as if it were somehow a credit to him. In the
presence of his good opinion of himself, I could but question the real
value of his continued life, to himself or to others. If he ever had any
friends he had outlived them, except his boy; his wives--a century of
them--were all dead; the world had actually passed away for him. He hung
on the tree like a frost-nipped apple, which the farmer has neglected to
gather. The world always renews itself, and remains young. What relation
had he to it?

I was delighted to find that this old man had never voted for George
Washington. I do not know that he had ever heard of him. Washington may
be said to have played his part since his time. I am not sure that he
perfectly remembered anything so recent as the American Revolution. He
was living quietly in Ireland during our French and Indian wars, and he
did not emigrate to this country till long after our revolutionary and
our constitutional struggles were over. Th