inks which Time has made."

Again, old men are valuable, not only as relics of the past, but as
guides and prophets for the future. They know the pattern of every turn
of life's kaleidoscope. The colors merely fall into new shapes; the
ground-work is just the same. The good which a calm, kind, and cheerful
old man can do is incalculable. And whilst he does good to others, he
enjoys himself. He looks not unnaturally to that which should accompany
old age--honor, love, obedience, troops of friends; and he plays his
part in the comedy or tragedy of life with as much gusto as any one
else. Old Montague, or Capulet, and old Polonius, that wise maxim-man,
enjoy themselves quite as well as the moody Hamlet, the perturbed
Laertes, or even gallant Mercutio or love-sick Romeo. Friar Lawrence,
who is a good old man, is perhaps the happiest of all in the _dramatis
personae_--unless we take the gossiping, garrulous old nurse, with her
sunny recollections of maturity and youth. The great thing is to have
the mind well employed, to work whilst it is yet day. The precise Duke
of Wellington, answering every letter with "F.M. presents his
compliments;" the wondrous worker Humboldt with his orders of
knighthood, stars, and ribbons, lying dusty in his drawer, still
contemplating _Cosmos_, and answering his thirty letters a day--were
both men in exceedingly enviable, happy positions; they had reached the
top of the hill, and could look back quietly over the rough road which
they had traveled. We are not all Humboldts or Wellingtons; but we can
all be busy and good. Experience must teach us all a great deal; and if
it only teaches us not to fear the future, not to cast a maundering
regret over the past, we can be as happy in old age--ay, and far more
so--than we were in youth. We are no longer the fools of time and error.
We are leaving by slow degrees the old world; we stand upon the
threshold of the new; not without hope, but without fear, in an
exceedingly natural position, with nothing strange or dreadful about it;
with our domain drawn within a narrow circle, but equal to our power.
Muscular strength, organic instincts, are all gone; but what then? We do
not want them; we are getting ready for the great change, one which is
just as necessary as it was to be born; and to a little child perhaps
one is not a whit more painful--perhaps not so painful as the other. The
wheels of Time have brought us to the goal; we are about to rest while
ot