h the Emperor Hadrian
addresses his soul is very much like that of an old person talking with
a grandchild or some other pet:

"Animula, vagula, blandula,
Hospes comesque corporis."

"Dear little, flitting, pleasing sprite,
The body's comrade and its guest."

How like the language of Catullus to Lesbia's sparrow!

More and more the old man finds his pleasures in memory, as the present
becomes unreal and dreamlike, and the vista of his earthly future
narrows and closes in upon him. At last, if he live long enough, life
comes to be little more than a gentle and peaceful delirium of pleasing
recollections. To say, as Dante says, that there is no greater grief
than to remember past happiness in the hour of misery is not giving
the whole truth. In the midst of the misery, as many would call it, of
extreme old age, there is often a divine consolation in recalling the
happy moments and days and years of times long past. So beautiful are
the visions of bygone delight that one could hardly wish them to become
real, lest they should lose their ineffable charm. I can almost conceive
of a dozing and dreamy centenarian saying to one he loves, "Go, darling,
go! Spread your wings and leave me. So shall you enter that world of
memory where all is lovely. I shall not hear the sound of your footsteps
any more, but you will float before me, an aerial presence. I shall not
hear any word from your lips, but I shall have a deeper sense of your
nearness to me than speech can give. I shall feel, in my still solitude,
as the Ancient Mariner felt when the seraph band gathered before him:

"'No voice did they impart
No voice; but oh! the silence sank
Like music on my heart.'"

I said that the lenient way in which the old look at the failings of
others naturally leads them to judge themselves more charitably. They
find an apology for their short-comings and wrong-doings in another
consideration. They know very well that they are not the same persons as
the middle-aged individuals, the young men, the boys, the children, that
bore their names, and whose lives were continuous with theirs. Here
is an old man who can remember the first time he was allowed to go
shooting. What a remorseless young destroyer he was, to be sure!
Wherever he saw a feather, wherever a poor little squirrel showed his
bushy tail, bang! went the old "king's arm," and the feathers or the fur
were set flying like so much chaff. Now that same old man,--th