Part 19

One of the pleasures of growing old is, to know, to acquire, to find out, to be able to appreciate the causes of things; this gradually becomes a necessity and an exquisite delight. We are able to pass out of our own small daily sphere, and to take interest in the marvellous government of the universe; to see the grand workings of cause and effect; the educing of good out of apparent evil; the clearing away of the knots in tangled destinies, general or individual; the wonderful agency of time, change, and progress in ourselves, in those surrounding us, and in the world at large. In small minds, this feeling expends itself in meddling, gossiping, scandal-mongering; but such are merely abortive developments of a right noble quality, which, properly guided, results in benefits incalculable to the individual and to society. Undoubtedly the after-half of life is the best working-time. Beautiful is youth’s enthusiasm, and grand are its achievements; but the most solid and permanent good is done by the persistent strength and wide experience of middle age. Contentment rarely comes till then; not mere resignation, a passive acquiescence in what cannot be removed, but active contentment. This is a blessing cheaply bought by a personal share in that daily account of joy and pain, which the longer one lives the more one sees is pretty equally balanced in all lives. Young people enjoy “the top of life” ecstatically, either in prospect or fruition; but they are very seldom contented. It is not possible. Not till the cloudy maze is half travelled through, and we begin to see the object and purpose of it, can we be really content.

The doubtful question, to marry or not to marry, is by this time generally settled. A woman’s relations with the other sex imperceptibly change their character, or slowly decline. There are exceptions; old lovers who have become friends, or friends whom no new love could make swerve from the fealty of years; still it usually happens so. The society of honorable, well-informed gentlemen, who meet a lady on the easy neutral ground of mutual esteem, is undoubtedly pleasant, but the time has passed when any one of them is _the_ one necessary to her happiness. If she wishes to retain influence over mankind, she must do it by means different from those employed in youth. Even then, be her wit ever so sparkling, her influence ever so pure and true, she will often find her listener preferring bright eyes to intellectual conversation, and the satisfaction of his heart to the improvement of his mind. And who can blame him? The only way for a woman to preserve the unfeigned respect of men, is to let them see that she can do without either their attention or their admiration. The waning coquette, the ancient beauty, as well as the ordinary woman, who has had her fair share of both love and liking, must show by her demeanor that she has learned this.

It is reckoned among the compensations of time that we suffer less as we grow older; that pain, like joy, becomes dulled by repetition, or by the callousness that comes with years. In one sense this is true. If there is no joy like the joy of youth, the rapture of a first love, the thrill of a first ambition, God’s great mercy has also granted that there is no anguish like youth’s pain; so total, so hopeless, blotting out earth and heaven, falling down upon the whole being like a stone. This never comes in after life; because the sufferer, if he or she have lived to any purpose at all, has learned that God never meant any human being to be crushed under any calamity, like a blind worm under a stone.

For lesser evils, the fact that our interests gradually take a wider range, allows more scope for the healing power of compensation. Also our loves, hates, sympathies, and prejudices, having assumed a more rational and softened shape, do not present so many angles for the rough attrition of the world. Likewise, with the eye of faith we have come to view life in its entireness, instead of puzzling over its disjointed parts, which were never meant to be made wholly clear to mortal eye. And that calm twilight, which, by nature’s kindly law, so soon begins to creep over the past, throws over all things a softened coloring, which transcends and forbids regret.

Another reason why woman has greater capacity for usefulness in middle life than in any previous portion of her existence, is her greater independence. She will have learned to understand herself, mentally and bodily; to be mistress over herself. Nor is this a small advantage; for it often takes years to comprehend, and to act upon when comprehended, the physical peculiarities of one’s own constitution. Much valetudinarianism among women arises from ignorance or neglect of the commonest sanitary laws; and from indifference to that grand preservative of a healthy body, _a well-controlled and healthy mind_. Both of these are more attainable in middle age than in youth; and therefore the sort of happiness they bring, a solid, useful, available happiness, is more in her power then than at any earlier period. And why? Because she has ceased to think principally of herself and her own pleasures; because happiness has itself become to her an accidental thing, which the good God may give or withhold, as He sees most fit for her, and most adapted to the work for which he means to use her in her generation. This conviction of being at once an active and a passive agent is surely consecration enough to form the peace, nay, the happiness, of any good woman’s life; enough, be it ever so solitary, to sustain it until the end. In what manner such a conviction should be carried out, no one individual can venture to advise. In this age, woman’s work is almost unlimited, when the woman herself so chooses. She alone can be a law unto herself; deciding and acting according to the circumstances in which her lot is placed. And have we not many who do so act? There are women of property, whose names are a proverb for generous and wide charities; whose riches, carefully guided, flow into innumerable channels, freshening the whole land. There are women of rank and influence, who use both, or lay aside both, in the simplest humility, for labors of love, which level all classes, or rather raise them all, to one common sphere of womanhood.

Many others, of whom the world knows nothing, have taken the wisest course that any unmarried woman can take; they have made themselves a home and a position; some, as the Ladies Bountiful of a country neighborhood; some, as elder sisters, on whom has fallen the bringing up of whole families, and to whom has been tacitly accorded the headship of the same, by the love and respect of more than one generation thereof. There are some who, as writers, painters, and professional women generally, make the most of whatever special gift is allotted to them; believing that, whether it be great or small, it is not theirs, either to lose or to waste, but that they must one day render up to the Master his own, with usury.

I will not deny that the approach of old age has its sad aspect to a woman who has never married; and who, when her own generation dies out, no longer retains, or can expect to retain, any flesh-and-blood claim upon a single human being. When all the downward ties, which give to the decline of life a rightful comfort, and the interest in the new generation which brightens it with a perpetual hope, are to her either unknown, or indulged in chiefly on one side. Of course there are exceptions, where an aunt has been almost like a mother, and where a loving and lovable great-aunt is as important a personage as any grandmother. But, generally speaking, a single woman must make up her mind that the close of her days will be more or less solitary.

Yet there is a solitude which old age feels to be as natural and satisfying as that rest which seems such an irksomeness to youth, but which gradually grows into the best blessing of our lives; and there is another solitude, so full of peace and hope, that it is like Jacob’s sleep in the wilderness, at the foot of the ladder of angels.

The extreme loneliness, which afar off appears sad, may prove to be but as the quiet, dreamy hour, “between the lights,” when the day’s work is done, and we lean back, closing our eyes, to think it all over before we finally go to rest, or to look forward, with faith and hope, unto the coming Morning.

A life in which the best has been made of all the materials granted to it, and through which the hand of the Great Designer can be plainly traced, whether its web be dark or bright, whether its pattern be clear or clouded, is not a life to be pitied; for it is a completed life. It has fulfilled its appointed course, and returns to the Giver of all breath, pure as he gave it. Nor will he forget it when he counteth up his jewels.

“Time wears slippers of list, and his tread is noiseless. The days come softly dawning, one after another; they creep in at the windows; their fresh morning air is grateful to the lips as they pant for it; their music is sweet to the ears that listen to it; until, before we know it, a whole life of days has possession of the citadel, and time has taken us for its own.”

EQUINOCTIAL.

BY MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY.

The Sun of Life has crossed the line; The summer-shine of lengthened light Faded and failed,--till, where I stand, ’Tis equal Day and equal Night.

One after one, as dwindling hours, Youth’s glowing hopes have dropped away, And soon may barely leave the gleam That coldly scores a winter’s day.

I am not young, I am not old; The flush of morn, the sunset calm, Paling, and deepening, each to each, Meet midway with a solemn charm.

One side I see the summer fields, Not yet disrobed of all their green; While westerly, along the hills, Flame the first tints of frosty sheen.

Ah, middle-point, where cloud and storm Make battle-ground of this my life! Where, even-matched, the Night and Day Wage round me their September strife!

I bow me to the threatening gale: I know when that is overpast, Among the peaceful harvest-days, An Indian-summer comes at last.

EPITAPH ON THE UNMATED.

No chosen spot of ground she called her own. In pilgrim guise o’er earth she wandered on; Yet always in her path some flowers were strown. No dear ones were her own peculiar care, So was her bounty free as heaven’s air; For every claim she had enough to spare. And, loving more her heart to _give_ than lend, Though oft deceived in many a trusted friend, She hoped, believed, and trusted to the end. She had her joys;--’twas joy to her to love, To labor in the world with God above, And tender hearts that ever near did move. She had her griefs;--but they left peace behind, And healing came on every stormy wind, And still with silver every cloud was lined. And every loss sublimed some low desire, And every sorrow taught her to aspire, Till waiting angels bade her “Go up higher.”

E. S.

A BEAUTIFUL THOUGHT.[J]

[J] From the Rev. Dr. Francis’s Memoir of the Hon. John Davis.

Blessing and blessed, this excellent man passed on to old age; and how beautiful that old age was, none, who had the privilege of knowing it, can ever forget. It was the old age of the Christian scholar and the beloved man. His evening of life could not but be bright and serene, full of hope, and free from sadness. He had a kindly freshness of spirit, which made the society of the young pleasant to him; and they, on their part, were always happy to be with him, enjoying the good-natured wisdom and the modest richness of his conversation. His faculties remained clear, active, and healthy to the last. Advancing years never for a moment closed the capacity, or abated the willingness, to receive new ideas. Though a lover of the past and the established, his opinions never hardened into prejudices. His intellectual vigor was not seen to moulder under the quiet which an old man claims as his right. Of him might be said what Solon said of himself in advanced years, that “he learned something every day he lived”; and to no one could be better applied the remark of Cicero concerning the venerable Appius: “He kept his mind bent like a bow, nor was it ever relaxed by old age.”

But it was peculiarly his fine moral qualities--his benevolence, his artlessness, his genial kindness--which shed a mellow and beautiful light on his old age. No thought of self ever mingled its alloy with the virtues that adorned Judge Davis’s character. His reliance on the truths and promises of Christian faith seemed more confident and vital as he drew nearer to the great realities of the future. For him, life had always a holy meaning. A Grecian philosopher, at the age of eighty-five, is said to have expressed painful discontent at the shortness of life, and complained of nature’s hard allotment, which snatches man away just as he is about to reach some perfection of science. Not so our Christian sage; he found occasion, not for complaint, but rather for thankfulness, because, as the end approached, he saw more distinctly revealed the better light beyond.

He once expressed, in a manner touchingly beautiful, his own estimation of old age. On the occasion of a dinner-party, at which Judge Story and others eminent in the legal profession were present, the conversation turned upon the comparative advantages of the different periods of life. Some preferred, for enjoyment, youth and manhood; others ascribed more solid satisfactions to old age. When the opinion of Judge Davis was asked, he said, with his usual calm simplicity of manner: “In the warm season of the year it is my delight to be in the country; and every pleasant evening while I am there, I love to sit at the window and look at some beautiful trees which grow near my house. The murmuring of the wind through the branches, the gentle play of the leaves, and the flickering of light upon them when the moon is up, fill me with an indescribable pleasure. As the autumn comes on, I feel very sad to see these leaves falling one by one; but when they are all gone, I find that they were only a screen before my eyes; for I experience a new and higher satisfaction as I gaze through the naked branches at the glorious stars of heaven beyond.”

AT ANCHOR.[K]

[K] Author unknown.

Ah, many a year ago, dear wife, We floated down this river, Where the hoar willows on its brink Alternate wave and shiver; With careless glance we viewed askance The kingfisher at quest, And scarce would heed the reed-wren near, Who sang beside her nest; Nor dreamed that e’er our boat would be Thus anchored and at rest, Dear love, Thus anchored, and at rest!

O, many a time the wren has built Where those green shadows quiver, And many a time the hawthorn shed Its blossoms on the river, Since that sweet noon of sultry June, When I my love confessed, While with the tide our boat did glide Adown the stream’s smooth breast, Whereon our little shallop lies Now anchored, and at rest, Dear love, Now anchored, and at rest!

The waters still to ocean run, Their tribute to deliver, And still the hawthorns bud and bloom Above the dusky river. Still sings the wren,--the water-hen Still skims the ripple’s crest; The sun--as bright as on that night-- Sinks slowly down the west; But now our tiny craft is moored, Safe anchored and at rest, Dear love, Safe anchored, and at rest!

For this sweet calm of after-days We thank the bounteous Giver, Who bids our life flow smoothly on As this delicious river. A world--our own--has round us grown, Wherein we twain are blest; Our child’s first words than songs of birds More music have expressed; And all our centred happiness Is anchored, and at rest, Dear love, Is anchored, and at rest!

NOVEMBER.

BY REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER.

We often hear people say, “O, the dreary days of November!” The days of November are never dreary, though _men_ sometimes are. There are things in November that make us sad. There are suggestions in it that lead us to serious thoughts. At that season of the year, we are apt to feel that life is passing away. After the days in summer begin to grow short, I cannot help sighing often; and, as they still grow shorter and shorter, I look upon things, not with pain, but with a melancholy eye. And when autumn comes, and the leaves of the trees drop down through the air and find their resting-places, I cannot help thinking, that life is short, that our work is almost ended. It makes me sad; but there is a sadness that is wholesome, and even pleasurable. There are sorrows that are not painful, but are of the nature of some acids, and give piquancy and flavor to life. Such is the sorrow which November brings. That month, which sees the year disrobed, is not a dreary month. I like to see the trees go to bed, as much as I like to see little children go to their sleep; and I think there is nothing prettier in this world than to see a mother disrobe her child and prepare its couch, and sing and talk to it, and finally lay it to rest. I like to see the birds get ready for their repose at night. Did you ever sit at twilight and hear the birds talk of their domestic matters,--apparently going over with each other the troubles and joys of the day? There is an immense deal to be learned from birds, if a person has an ear to hear. Even so I like to see the year prepare for its sleep. I like to see the trees with their clothes taken off. I like to see the lines of a tree; to see its anatomy. I like to see the preparation God makes for winter. How everything is snugged and packed! How all nature gets ready for the cold season! How the leaves heap themselves upon the roots to protect them from the frosts! How all things tender are taken out of the way, and only things tough are left to stand the buffetings of winter! And how do hardy vines and roots bravely sport their bannered leaves, which the frost cannot kill, holding them up clear into the coldest days! November is a dreary month to some, but to me it is only sad; and it is a sweet sadness that it brings to my mind.

MEDITATIONS ON A BIRTHDAY EVE.

BY REV. JOHN PIERPONT.

Day, with its labors, has withdrawn. The stars look down from heaven, And whisper, “Of thy life are gone Full seventy years and seven!”

While those bright worlds, by angels trod, Thus whispering round me roll, Let me commune with thee, my God! Commune with thee, my soul!

Thou, Father, canst not change thy place, Nor change thy time to be. What are the boundless fields of space, Or what are years to Thee?

But unto me, revolving years Bring change, bring feebler breath; Bring age,--and, though they bring no fears, Bring slower steps, pain, death.

This earthly house thy wisdom plann’d, And leased me for a term, The house I live in, _seems_ to stand On its foundation firm.

I hardly see that it is old; But younger eyes find proof Of its long standing, who behold The gray moss on its roof.

Spirit! thou knowest this house, erelong, To kindred dust must fall. Hast thou, while in it, grown more strong, More ready for the call

To meet thy Judge, amid “the cloud Of witnesses,” who’ve run Their heavenward race, and joined the crowd, Who wreaths and crowns have won?

Hast thou, in search of Truth, been true? True to thyself and her? And been, with many or with few, Her _honest_ worshipper?

E’en truths, wherein the Past hath stood, Wouldst thou inherit blind? They’re good; but there’s a _better_ good,-- The power _more_ truths to find.

And hast thou occupied that power, And made one talent five? If so, then peaceful be this hour! Thou’st saved thy soul alive.

Hast thou e’er given the world a page, A line that thou wouldst blot, As adverse to an upward age? God knoweth thou hast not!

Giver of life and all my powers, To thee my soul I lift! And in these lone and thoughtful hours, I thank thee for the gift.

Day, with its toil and care withdrawn, Night’s shadows o’er me thrown, Another of my years is gone, And here I sit alone.

No, not alone! for with me sit My judges,--God and I; And the large record we have writ, Is lying open by.

And as I hope, erelong, to swell The song of seraphim, And as that song the truth will tell, My judgment is with Him.

Spirit! thy race is nearly run. Say, hast thou run it well? Thy work on earth is almost done; _How_ done, no _man_ can tell.

Spirit, toil on! thy house, that stands Seventy years old and seven, Will fall; but one, “not made with hands” Awaiteth thee in heaven.

THE GRANDMOTHER OF SLAVES.

BY HER GRANDDAUGHTER.

I had a great treasure in my maternal grandmother, who was a remarkable woman in many respects. She was the daughter of a planter in South Carolina, who, at his death, left her and her mother free, with money to go to St. Augustine, where they had relatives. It was during the Revolutionary War, and they were captured on their passage, carried back, and sold to different purchasers. Such was the story my grandmother used to tell me. She was sold to the keeper of a large hotel, and I have often heard her tell how hard she fared during childhood. But as she grew older, she evinced so much intelligence, and was so faithful, that her master and mistress could not help seeing it was for their interest to take care of such a valuable piece of property. She became an indispensable person in the household, officiating in all capacities, from cook and wet-nurse to seamstress She was much praised for her cooking; and her nice crackers became so famous in the neighborhood that many people were desirous of obtaining them. In consequence of numerous requests of this kind, she asked permission of her mistress to bake crackers at night, after all the household work was done; and she obtained leave to do it, provided she would clothe herself and the children from the profits. Upon these terms, after working hard all day for her mistress, she began her midnight bakings, assisted by her two oldest children. The business proved profitable; and each year she laid by a little, to create a fund for the purchase of her children. Her master died, and his property was divided among the heirs. My grandmother remained in the service of his widow, as a slave. Her children were divided among her master’s children; but, as she had five, Benjamin, the youngest, was sold, in order that the heirs might have an equal portion of dollars and cents. There was so little difference in our ages, that he always seemed to me more like a brother than an uncle. He was a bright, handsome lad, nearly white; for he inherited the complexion my grandmother had derived from Anglo-Saxon ancestors. His sale was a terrible blow to his mother; but she was naturally hopeful, and she went to work with redoubled energy, trusting in time to be able to purchase her children. One day, her mistress begged the loan of three hundred dollars from the little fund she had laid up from the proceeds of her baking. She promised to pay her soon; but as no promise, or writing, given to a slave is legally binding, she was obliged to trust solely to her honor.