e 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. It knows
too well the results and the value of things to care about them; that
the ache will subside, the pain be lulled, the estate we coveted be
worth little; the titles, ribbons, gewgaws, honors, be all more or less
worthless. "Who has honor? He that died o' Wednesday!" Such a one passed
us in the race, and gained it but to fall. We are still up and doing; we
may be frosty and shrewd, but kindly. We can wish all men well; like
them, too, so far as they may be liked, and smile at the fuss, bother,
hurry, and turmoil, which they make about matters which to us are
worthless dross. The greatest prize in the whole market--in any and in
every market--success, is to the old man nothing. He little cares who is
up and who is down; the present he lives in and delights in. Thus, in
one of those admirable comedies in which Robson acted, we find the son a
wanderer, the mother's heart nearly broken, the father torn and broken
by a suspicion of his son's dishonesty, but the grandfather all the
while concerned only about his gruel and his handkerchief. Even the
pains and troubles incident to his state visit the old man lightly.
Because Southey sat for months in his library, unable to read or touch
the books he loved, we are not to infe