Seaboard Parish, vol 1 | Page 2

to communicate. They are mostly old people that can do so.
Not that young people have nothing happen to them; but that only when
they grow old, are they able to see things right, to disentangle
confusions, and judge righteous judgment. Things which at the time
appeared insignificant or wearisome, then give out the light that was in
them, show their own truth, interest, and influence: they are far enough

off to be seen. It is not when we are nearest to anything that we know
best what it is. How I should like to write a story for old people! The
young are always having stories written for them. Why should not the
old people come in for a share? A story without a young person in it at
all! Nobody under fifty admitted! It could hardly be a fairy tale, could it?
Or a love story either? I am not so sure about that. The worst of it
would be, however, that hardly a young person would read it. Now, we
old people would not like that. We can read young people's books and
enjoy them: they would not try to read old men's books or old women's
books; they would be so sure of their being dry. My dear old brothers
and sisters, we know better, do we not? We have nice old jokes, with
no end of fun in them; only they cannot see the fun. We have strange
tales, that we know to be true, and which look more and more
marvellous every time we turn them over again; only somehow they do
not belong to the ways of this year--I was going to say _week_,--and so
the young people generally do not care to hear them. I have had one
pale-faced boy, to be sure, who will sit at his mother's feet, and listen
for hours to what took place before he was born. To him his mother's
wedding-gown was as old as Eve's coat of skins. But then he was
young enough not yet to have had a chance of losing the childhood
common to the young and the old. Ah! I should like to write for you,
old men, old women, to help you to read the past, to help you to look
for the future. Now is your salvation nearer than when you believed; for,
however your souls may be at peace, however your quietness and
confidence may give you strength, in the decay of your earthly
tabernacle, in the shortening of its cords, in the weakening of its stakes,
in the rents through which you see the stars, you have yet your share in
the cry of the creation after the sonship. But the one thing I should keep
saying to you, my companions in old age, would be, "Friends, let us not
grow old." Old age is but a mask; let us not call the mask the face. Is
the acorn old, because its cup dries and drops it from its hold--because
its skin has grown brown and cracks in the earth? Then only is a man
growing old when he ceases to have sympathy with the young. That is a
sign that his heart has begun to wither. And that is a dreadful kind of
old age. The heart needs never be old. Indeed it should always be
growing younger. Some of us feel younger, do we not, than when we
were nine or ten? It is not necessary to be able to play at leapfrog to

enjoy the game. There are young creatures whose turn it is, and perhaps
whose duty it would be, to play at leap-frog if there was any necessity
for putting the matter in that light; and for us, we have the privilege, or
if we will not accept the privilege, then I say we have the duty, of
enjoying their leap-frog. But if we must withdraw in a measure from
sociable relations with our fellows, let it be as the wise creatures that
creep aside and wrap themselves up and lay themselves by that their
wings may grow and put on the lovely hues of their coming
resurrection. Such a withdrawing is in the name of youth. And while it
is pleasant--no one knows how pleasant except him who experiences
it--to sit apart and see the drama of life going on around him, while his
feelings are calm and free, his vision clear, and his judgment righteous,
the old man must ever be ready, should the sweep of action catch him
in its skirts, to get on his tottering old legs, and go with brave heart to
do the work of a true man, none the less true that his hands tremble,
and that he would gladly return to his chimney-corner. If he is