ful. An invalid life with its almost unbroken monotony, and with the
large measure of torpor that often accompanies it, usually flies very
quickly, and most persons must have observed how the first week of
travel, or of some other great change of habits and pursuits, though
often attended with keen enjoyment, appears disproportionately long.
Routine shortens and variety lengthens time, and it is therefore in the
power of men to do something to regulate its pace. A life with many
landmarks, a life which is much subdivided when those subdivisions are
not of the same kind, and when new and diverse interests, impressions,
and labours follow each other in swift and distinct succession, seems
the most long, and youth, with its keen susceptibility to impressions,
appears to move much more slowly than apathetic old age. How almost
immeasurably long to a young child seems the period from birthday to
birthday! How long to the schoolboy seems the interval between vacation
and vacation! How rapid as we go on in life becomes the awful beat of
each recurring year! When the feeling of novelty has grown rare, and
when interests have lost their edge, time glides by with an
ever-increasing celerity. Campbell has justly noticed as a beneficent
provision of nature that it is in the period of life when enjoyments are
fewest, and infirmities most numerous, that the march of time seems most
rapid.

The more we live, more brief appear
Our life's succeeding stages,
A day to childhood seems a year,
And years like passing ages.

* * * * *

When Joys have lost their bloom and breath,
And life itself is vapid,
Why as we reach the Falls of death
Feel we its tide more rapid?

* * * * *

Heaven gives our years of fading strength
Indemnifying fleetness;
And those of youth a seeming length
Proportioned to their sweetness.

The shortness of life is one of the commonplaces of literature. Yet
though we may easily conceive beings with faculties both of mind and
body adapted to a far longer life than ours, it will usually be found,
with our existing powers, that life, if not prematurely shortened, is
long enough. In the case of men who have played a great part in public
affairs, the best work is nearly always done before old age. It is a
remarkable fact that although a Senate, by its very derivation, means an
as