* * *

The decline of life, and the retrospections of old age, furnish
unequivocal tests of worthiness and unworthiness. Happy is the man,
who, after a well-spent life, can contemplate the rapid approach of
his last year with the consciousness that, if he were born again, he
could not, under all the circumstances of his worldly position, have
done better, and who has inflicted no injuries for which it is too
late to atone. Wretched, on the contrary, is he, who is obliged to
look back on a youth of idleness and profligacy, on a manhood
of selfishness and sensuality, and on a career of hypocrisy, of
insensibility, of concealed crime, and of injustice above the reach
of law. Visit both during the decay of their systems, observe their
feelings and tempers, view the followers at their funerals, count the
tears on their graves; and, after such a comparison, in good time make
your own choice.

* * * * *

Constant change is the feature of society. The world is like a magic
lantern, or the shifting scenes in a pantomime. TEN YEARS convert the
population of schools into men and women, the young into fathers and
matrons, make and mar fortunes, and bury the last generation but one.
TWENTY YEARS convert infants into lovers, and fathers and mothers,
render youth the operative generation, decide men's fortunes and
distinctions, convert active men into crawling drivellers, and bury
all the preceding generation. THIRTY YEARS raise an active generation
from nonentity, change fascinating beauties into merely bearable old
women, convert lovers into grandfathers and grandmothers, and bury the
active generation, or reduce them to decrepitude and imbecility. FORTY
YEARS, alas! change the face of all society; infants are growing old,
the bloom of youth and beauty has passed away, two active generations
have been swept from the stage of life, names so cherished are
forgotten, and unsuspected candidates for fame have started from the
exhaustless womb of nature. FIFTY YEARS! why should any desire to
retain their affections from maturity for fifty years? It is to behold
a world which they do not know, and to which they are unknown; it
is to live to weep for the generations passed away, for lovers, for
parents, for children, for friends, in the grave; it is to see every
thing turned upside down by the fickle hand of fortune, and the
absolute despotism of time; it is, in a word, to behold the vanity