Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1889 — HAPPINESS OF THE OLD. [ARTICLE]

HAPPINESS OF THE OLD.

They Are Beyond Selfishness and Hare Forgotten Envy. The old are notoriously strong in matters of judgment, even though their knees may be wtak. What so pleasurable as to sit in the seat of the censor? Is a man ever too old for the bench? The longevity and the haleness of our more considerable lawyers is a convincing testimony to the advantageousness of their position. But every old man stands toward the community at like a judge toward his criminals. Each year broadens his horizon, extends his pleasure and his pastime. Methnsela was a man immensely to be envied. What varied lore, what an endless series of graduated pictures he must have stored within him, as the centuries passed and left him high and dry among his pigmy fellow-men! Nothing is easier, it may be said, than to cast together the evils which commonly wait upon old age, and thereby to prove that it is absurd to suppose that happiness can exist in the midst of them. Of course, nothing is easier than to catalogue these possible afflictions; but, on the other hand, I contend with mv betters that happiness, contentment, or what you please to call the “summum bonum” we all strive for, is quite independent of most of these afflictions. The prudent person, when old, expects to be tried in this way. He is prepared, and that is half the battle. Nor must it be forgotten that even as his energies have waned with his increase of years, so also his body has changed into a condition well suited to bear physical trials, which, in his youth, would have been insufferable. As a stripling he grumbled without ceasing when, a toothache or a sprained ankle kept him within doors; as an octogenarian the chair to which he is confined for a good many hours of the day is to him by far the most comfortable place in all the world, nor would he exchange it for the Pope’s throne, if the throne were only to be won by a journey to Borne. But to recur to the moral aspect of the matter. Is it not a fact that a good man’s goodness increases as he grows older? There is nothing in the world more venerable and lovable than a good old man or woman. Surely that is much, for are not respect and affection just the two things for which we fight hardest during the fighting part of our career ? And they may .be acquired by the aged without effort. “It is only older people, after all, who are quite unselfish, and feel the greatest pleasure in witnessing the happiness of others.” Miss Thackeray was very right when she wrote this. It constitutes the keenest joy of reverend old age; a joy to which the wild intoxicants, which in youth we call pleasures, are as nothing at all. It is almost impossible, made as we are, for the young to be disinterestedly happy in the happiness of others. Envy and jealousy are ever on the alert to mar such a divine possibility. But' the old are doubly gladdened by the visible joy of others. They are generous enough to rejoice because others are profited. And —this is not cynicism—they often also find cause to congratulate themselves that their own snug tranquillity is not in peril of being disturbed by the like boisterous agents of felicity. It is for their peace and resignation that I most admire the old. They have attained Nirvana. The wor Id’s "game, confessedly not an unamazing one, is known to them. They- are on the heights of Pisgah, whereas we are warring in the plain or groaning in the valleys about the tedium of our days. —All the Year Round.