Looking toward sunset

by Unknown

THE ANCIENT MAN.

TRANSLATED BY L. O. FROM THE GERMAN OF JEAN PAUL RICHTER’S MEMOIR OF FIBEL, AUTHOR OF THE BIENENRODA SPELLING-BOOK.

“He is insensibly subdued

To settled quiet. He is one by whom

All effort seems forgotten; one to whom

Long patience hath such mild composure given,

That patience now doth seem a thing of which

He hath no need. He is by Nature led

To peace so perfect, that the young behold

With envy what the old man hardly feels.”

Wordsworth.

The stream of Fibel’s history having vanished under ground, like a second river Rhone, I was obliged to explore where story or stream again burst forth, and for this purpose I questioned every one. I was told that no one could better inform me than an exceedingly aged man, more than a hundred and twenty-five years old, who lived a few miles from the village of Bienenroda, and who, having been young at the same time with Fibel, must know all about him. The prospect of shaking hands with the very oldest man living on the face of the earth enraptured me. I said to myself that a most novel and peculiar sensation must be excited by having a whole past century before you, bodily present, compact and alive, in the century now passing; by holding, hand to hand, a man of the age of the antediluvians, over whose head so many entire generations of young mornings and old evenings have fled, and before whom one stands, in fact, as neither young nor old; to listen to a human spirit, outlandish, behind the time, almost mysteriously awful; sole survivor of the thousand gray, cold sleepers, coevals of his own remote, hoary age; standing as sentinel before the ancient dead, looking coldly and strangely on life’s silly novelties; finding in the present no cooling for his inborn spirit-thirst, no more enchanting yesterdays or to-morrows, but only the day-before-yesterday of youth, and the day-after-to-morrow of death. It may consequently be imagined that so very old a man would speak only of his farthest past, of his early day-dawn, which, of course, in the long evening of his protracted day, must now be blending with his midnight. On the other hand, that one like myself would not feel particularly younger before such a millionnaire of hours, as the Bienenroda Patriarch must be; and that his presence must make one feel more conscious of death than of immortality. A very aged man is a more powerful memento than a grave; for the older a grave is, the farther we look back to the succession of young persons who have mouldered in it; sometimes a maiden is concealed in an ancient grave; but an ancient dwindled body hides only an imprisoned spirit.

An opportunity for visiting the Patriarch was presented by a return coach-and-six, belonging to a count, on which I was admitted to a seat with the coachman. Just before arriving at Bienenroda, he pointed with his whip toward an orchard, tuneful with song, and said, “There sits the old man with his little animals around him.” I sprang from the noble equipage and went toward him. I ventured to expect that the Count’s six horses would give me, before the old man, the appearance of a person of rank, apart from the simplicity of my dress, whereby princes and heroes are wont to distinguish themselves from their tinselled lackeys. I was, therefore, a little surprised that the old man kept on playing with his pet hare, not even checking the barking of his poodle, as if counts were his daily bread, until, at last, he lifted his oil-cloth hat from his head. A buttoned overcoat, which gave room to see his vest, a long pair of knit over-alls, which were, in fact, enormous stockings, and a neckerchief, which hung down to his bosom, made his dress look modern enough. His time-worn frame was far more peculiar. The inner part of the eye, which is black in childhood, was quite white; his tallness, more than his years, seemed to bow him over into an arch; the out-turned point of his chin gave to his speech the appearance of mumbling; yet the expression of his countenance was lively, his eyes bright, his jaws full of white teeth, and his head covered with light hair.

I began by saying: “I came here solely on your account to see a man for whom there can assuredly be little new under the sun, though he himself is something very new under it. You are now strictly in your five and twenties; a man in your best years; since after a century a new reckoning commences. For myself, I confess that after once clambering over the century terminus, or church-wall of a hundred years, I should neither know how old I was, nor whether I was myself. I should begin fresh and free, just as the world’s history has often done, counting again from the year one, in the middle of a thousand years. Yet why can not a man live to be as old as is many a giant tree of India still standing? It is well to question very old people concerning the methods by which they have prolonged their lives. How do you account for it, dear old sir?”

I was beginning to be vexed at the good man’s silence, when he softly replied: “Some suppose it is because I have always been cheerful; because I have adopted the maxim, ‘Never sad, ever glad’; but I ascribe it wholly to our dear Lord God; since the animals, which here surround us, though never sad, but happy for the most part, by no means so frequently exceed the usual boundary of their life, as does man. He exhibits an image of the eternal God, even in the length of his duration.”

Such words concerning God, uttered by a tongue one hundred and twenty-five years old, had great weight and consolation; and I at once felt their beautiful attraction. On mentioning animals, the old man turned again to his own; and, as though indifferent to him who had come in a coach-and-six, he began again to play with his menagerie, the hare, the spaniel, the silky poodle, the starling, and a couple of turtle-doves on his bosom; a pleasant bee-colony in the orchard also gave heed to him; with one whistle he sent the bees away, and with another summoned them into the ring of creatures, which surrounded him like a court-circle.

At last, he said: “No one need be surprised that a very old man, who has forgotten everything, and whom no one but the dear God knows or cares for, should give himself wholly to the dear animals. To whom can such an old man be of much use? I wander about in the villages, as in cities, wholly strange. If I see children, they come before me like my own remote childhood. If I meet old men, they seem like my past hoary years. I do not quite know where I now belong. I hang between heaven and earth. Yet God ever looks upon me bright and lovingly, with his two eyes, the sun and the moon. Moreover, animals lead into no sin, but rather to devotion. When my turtle-doves brood over their young and feed them, it seems to me just as if I saw God himself doing a great deal; for they derive their love and instinct toward their young, as a gift from him.”

The old man became silent, and looked pensively before him, as was his wont. A ringing of christening bells sounded from Bienenroda among the trees in the garden. He wept a little. I know not how I could have been so simple, after the beautiful words he had uttered, as to have mistaken his tears for a sign of weakness in his eyes. “I do not hear well, on account of my great age,” said he; “and it seems to me as if the baptismal bell from the distant sanctuary sounded up here very faintly. The old years of my childhood, more than a hundred years ago, ascend from the ancient depths of time, and gaze on me in wonder, while I and they know not whether we ought to weep or laugh.” Then, addressing his silky poodle, he called out, “Ho! ho! come here old fellow!”

The allusion to his childhood brought me to the purpose of my visit. “Excellent sir,” said I, “I am preparing the biography of the deceased Master Gotthelf Fibel, author of the famous Spelling-Book; and all I now need to complete it is the account of his death.” The old man smiled, and made a low bow. I continued, “No one is more likely to know the particulars of his decease than yourself; and you are the only person who can enrich me with the rare traits of his childhood; because every incident inscribed on a child’s brain grows deeper with years, like names cut into a gourd, while later inscriptions disappear. Tell me, I pray you, all that you know concerning the departed man; for I am to publish his Life at the Michaelmas Fair.”

He murmured, “Excellent genius; scholar; man of letters; author most famous; these and other fine titles I learned by heart and applied to myself, while I was that vain, blinded Fibel, who wrote and published the ordinary Spelling-Book in question.”

So then, this old man was the blessed Fibel himself! A hundred and twenty-five notes of admiration, ay, eighteen hundred and eleven notes in a row, would but feebly express my astonishment.

[Here follows a long conversation concerning Fibel, after which the narrative continues as follows:—]

The old man went into his little garden-house, and I followed him. He whistled, and instantly his black squirrel came down from a tree, whither it had gone more for pleasure than for food. Nightingales, thrushes, starlings, and other birds, flew back into the open window from the tops of the trees. A bulfinch, whose color had been changed by age from red to black, strutted about the room, uttering droll sounds, which it could not make distinct. The hare pattered about in the twilight, sometimes on his hind feet, sometimes on all fours. Every dog in the house bounded forward in glad, loving, human glee. But the most joyful of all was the poodle; for he knew he was to have a box with compartments fastened to his neck, containing a list of the articles wanted for supper, which it was his business to bring from the inn in Bienenroda. He was Fibel’s victualler, or provision-wagon. Children, who ran back and forth, were the only other ones who ministered to his wants.

In allusion to his pets, he said: “We ought to assist the circumscribed faculties of animals, by educating them, as far as we can, since we stand toward them, in a certain degree, as their Lord God; and we ought to train them to good morals, too; for very possibly they may continue to live after death. God and the animals are always good; but not so with man.”

Aged men impart spiritual things, as they give material things, with a shaking hand, which drops half. In the effort to gather up his recollections, he permitted me to quicken his memory with my own; and thus I obtained a connected account of some particulars in his experience. He said he might have been about a hundred years old, when he cut a new set of teeth, the pain of which disturbed him with wild dreams. One night he seemed to be holding in his hands a large sieve, and it was his task to pull the meshes apart, one by one. The close net-work, and the fastening to the wooden rim, gave him indescribable trouble. But as his dream went on, he seemed to hold in his hand the great bright sun, which flamed up into his face. He woke with a new-born feeling, and slumbered again, as if on waving tulips. He dreamed again that he was a hundred years old, and that he died as an innocent yearling child, without any of the sin or woe of earth; that he found his parents on high, who brought before him a long procession of his children, who had remained invisible to him while he was in this world, because they were transparent, like the angels. He rose from his bed with new teeth and new ideas. The old Fibel was consumed, and a true Phœnix stood in his place, sunning its colored wings. He had risen glorified out of no other grave than his own body. The world retreated; heaven came down.

When he had related these things, he at once bade me good night. Without waiting for the return of his ministering poodle, and with hands folded for prayer, he showed me the road. I withdrew, but I rambled a long time round the orchard, which had sprung entirely from seed of his own planting. Indeed he seldom ate a cherry without smuggling the stone and burying it in the ground for a resurrection. This habit often annoyed the neighboring peasants, who did not want high things growing on their boundaries. “But,” said he, “I cannot destroy a fruit-stone. If the peasants pull up the tree it produces, it will still have lived a little while, and die as a child dies.”

While loitering in the orchard, I heard an evening hymn played and sung. I returned near Fibel’s window, and saw him slowly turning a hand-organ, and accompanying the tune by softly singing an evening hymn. This organ, aided by his fragment of a voice, sufficed, in its monotonous uniformity, for his domestic devotion. I went away repeating the song.

Beautiful was the orchard when I returned the next morning. And the hoar-frost of age seemed thawed and fluid, and to glisten only as morning dew on Fibel’s after-blossom. The affection of his animals toward him rendered the morning still more beautiful, in an orchard every tree of which had for its mother the stone of some fruit that he had enjoyed. His animals were an inheritance from his parents; though, of course they were the great, great, great grandchildren of those which had belonged to them. The trees were full of brooding birds, and by a slight whistle he could lure down to his shoulders this tame posterity of his father’s singing-school. It was refreshing to the heart to see how quickly the tender flutterers surrounded him.

With the infantine satisfaction of a gray-headed child, he was accustomed to hang up on sticks, or in the trees, wherever the rays of the sun could best shine upon them, little balls of colored glass; and he took indescribable delight in this accordion of silver, gold, and jewel hues. These parti-colored sun-balls, varying the green with many flaming tints, were like crystal tulip-beds. Some of the red ones seemed like ripe apples among the branches. But what charmed the old man most were reflections of the landscape from these little world-spheres. They resembled the moving prospects shadowed forth in a diminishing mirror. “Ah,” said he, “when I contemplate the colors produced by the sunshine, which God gives to this dark world, it seems to me as if I had departed, and were already with God. And yet, since He is in us, we are always with God.”

I asked him how it happened that, at his age, he spoke German almost purer than that used even by our best writers. Counting his birth from the end of his century [the new birth described in his dream], he replied: “I was somewhere about two years old, when I happened to hear a holy, spiritual minister, who spoke German with such an angel tongue, that he would not have needed a better in heaven. I heard him every Sabbath during several years.” He could not tell me the preacher’s name, but he vividly described his manner in the pulpit. He told how he spoke with no superfluity of words, airs, or gestures; how he uttered, in mild tones, things the most beautiful and forcible; how, like the Apostle John, with his resting-place close to heaven, this man spoke to the world, laying his hands calmly on the pulpit-desk, as an arm-case; how his every tone was a heart, and his every look a blessing; how the energy of this disciple of Christ was embedded in love, as the firm diamond is encased in ductile gold; how the pulpit was to him a Mount Tabor, whereon he transfigured both himself and his hearers; and how, of all clergymen, he best performed that which is the most difficult,—the praying worthily.

My feelings grew constantly warmer toward this time-worn man, while I did not require a full return of affection from him any more than I should from a little child. But I remembered that I ought not to disturb the evening of his days with things of the world, and that I ought to depart. I would have him preserve undisturbed that sublime position of old age, where man lives, as it were, at the pole; where no star rises or sets; where the whole firmament is motionless and clear, while the Pole-Star of another world shines fixedly overhead. I therefore said to him, that I would return in the evening, and take my leave. To my surprise, he replied, that perhaps he should himself take leave of the whole world at evening, and that he wished not to be disturbed when dying. He said that he should that evening read to the end of the Revelation of St. John, and perhaps it might be the end with him also. I ought to have mentioned previously that he read continually, and read nothing but the Bible, regularly through from the beginning to the end; and he had a fixed impression that he should depart on concluding the twentieth and twenty-first verses of the twenty-second chapter of the Revelation of John: “He which testifieth of these things saith, Surely I come quickly: Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.” In consequence of this belief, he was in the habit of reading the last books of the Bible faster.

Little as I believed in so sudden a withering of his protracted after-blossom, I obeyed his latest-formed wish. Whenever a right wish is expressed by any man, we should do well to remember that it may be his last. I took my leave, requesting him to intrust me with his testamentary commissions for the village. He said they had been taken charge of long ago, and the children knew them. He cut a twig from a Christmas-tree, coeval with his childhood, and presented me with it as a keepsake.

In the beautiful summer evening, I could not refrain from stealthily approaching the house, through the orchard, to ascertain whether the good old man had ended his Bible and his life together. On the way, I found the torn envelope of a letter sealed with a black seal, and over me the white storks were speeding their way to a warmer country. I was not much encouraged when I heard all the birds singing in his orchard; for their ancestors had done the same when his father died. A towering cloud, full of the latest twilight, spread itself before my short-sighted vision, like a far-off, blooming, foreign landscape; and I could not comprehend how it was that I had never before noticed this strange-looking, reddish land; so much the more easily did it occur to me that this might be his Orient, whither God was leading the weary one. I had become so confused, as actually to mistake red bean-blossoms for a bit of fallen sunset. Presently, I heard a man singing to the accompaniment of an organ. It was the aged man singing his evening hymn:

“Lord of my life, another day

Once more hath sped away.”

The birds in the room, and those on the distant branches also, chimed in with his song. The bees, too, joined in with their humming, as in the warm summer evening they dived into the cups of the linden-blossoms. My joy kindled into a flame. He was alive! But I would not disturb his holy evening. I would let him remain with Him who had surrounded him with gifts and with years, and not call upon him to think of any man here below. I listened to the last verse of his hymn, that I might be still more certain of the actual continuance of his life, and then tardily I slipped away. To my joy, I still found, in the eternal youth of Nature, beautiful references to his lengthened age; from the everlasting rippling of the brook in the meadow, to a late swarm of bees, which had settled themselves on a linden-tree, probably in the forenoon, before two o’clock, as if, by taking their lodging with him, he was to be their bee-father, and continue to live. Every star twinkled to me a hope.

I went to the orchard very early in the morning, wishing to look upon the aged man in sleep; death’s ancient prelude, the warm dream of cold death. But he was reading, and had read, in his large-printed Bible, far beyond the Deluge, as I could see by the engravings. I held it to be a duty not to interrupt his solitude long. I told him I was going away, and gave him a little farewell billet, instead of farewell words. I was much moved, though silent. It was not the kind of emotion with which we take leave of a friend, or a youth, or an old man; it was like parting from a remote stranger-being, who scarcely glances at us from the high, cold clouds which hold him between the earth and the sun. There is a stillness of soul which resembles the stillness of bodies on a frozen sea, or on high mountains; every loud tone is an interruption too prosaically harsh, as in the softest adagio. Even those words, “for the last time,” the old man had long since left behind him. Yet he hastily presented to me my favorite flower, a blue Spanish vetch, in an earthen pot. This butterfly-flower is the sweeter, inasmuch as it so easily exhales its perfume and dies. He said he had not yet sung the usual morning-hymn, which followed the survival of his death-evening; and he begged me not to take it amiss that he did not accompany me, or even once look after me, especially as he could not see very well. He then added, almost with emotion, “O friend, may you live virtuously! We shall meet again, where my departed relatives will be present, and also that great preacher, whose name I have forgotten. We meet again.”

He turned immediately, quite tranquilly, to his organ. I parted from him, as from a life. He played on his organ beneath the trees, and his face was turned toward me; but to his dim eyes I knew that I should soon become as a motionless cloud. So I remained until he began his morning hymn, from old Neander:

“The Lord still leaves me living,

I hasten Him to praise;

My joyful spirit giving,

He hears my early lays.”

While he was singing, the birds flew round him; the dogs accustomed to the music, were silent; and it even wafted the swarm of bees into their hive. Bowed down as he was by age, his figure was so tall, that from the distance where I stood he looked sufficiently erect. I remained until the old man had sung the twelfth and last verse of his morning hymn:

“Ready my course to finish,

And come, O God, to Thee;

A conscience pure I cherish,

Till death shall summon me.”

* * * * *

Nothing of God’s making can a man love rightly, without being the surer of God’s loving himself; neither the moon, nor the stars, nor a rock, nor a tree, nor a flower, nor a bird. Not the least grateful of my thanksgivings have been hymns that have come to my lips while I have been listening to the birds of an evening. Only let us love what God loves, and then His love of ourselves will feel certain, and the sight of his face we shall be sure of; and immortality, and heaven, and the freedom of the universe, will be as easy for us to believe in, as a father’s giving good gifts to his children.—Mountford.

MILTON’S HYMN OF PATIENCE.
By ELIZABETH LLOYD HOWELL.

I am old and blind!

Men point at me as smitten by God’s frown;

Afflicted, and deserted of my kind,

Yet I am not cast down.

I am weak, yet strong;

I murmur not, that I no longer see;

Poor, old, and helpless, I the more belong,

Father supreme! to thee.

O merciful One!

When men are farthest, then thou art most near;

When friends pass by, my weaknesses to shun,

Thy chariot I hear.

Thy glorious face

Is leaning towards me, and its holy light

Shines in upon my lonely dwelling-place;

And there is no more night.

On my bended knees,

I recognize thy purpose, clearly shown;

My vision thou hast dimmed, that I may see

Thyself, thyself alone.

I have naught to fear;

This darkness is the shadow of thy wing;

Beneath it I am almost sacred; here

Can come no evil thing.

O, I seem to stand

Trembling, where foot of mortal ne’er hath been;

Wrapped in the radiance from the sinless land.

Which eye hath never seen.

Visions come and go;

Shapes of resplendent beauty round me throng;

From angel lips I seem to hear the flow

Of soft and holy song.

It is nothing now,—

When heaven is opening on my sightless eyes,

When airs from paradise refresh my brow,—

That earth in darkness lies.

In a purer clime,

My being fills with rapture! waves of thought

Roll in upon my spirit! strains sublime

Break over me unsought.

Give me now my lyre!

I feel the stirrings of a gift divine;

Within my bosom glows unearthly fire,

Lit by no skill of mine.

LETTER FROM AN OLD WOMAN, ON HER BIRTHDAY.
By L. MARIA CHILD.

You ask me, dear friend, whether it does not make me sad to grow old. I tell you frankly it did make me sad for a while; but that time has long since past. The name of being old I never dreaded. I am not aware that there ever was a time when I should have made the slightest objection to having my age proclaimed by the town-crier, if people had had any curiosity to know it. But I suppose every human being sympathizes with the sentiment expressed by Wordsworth:

“Life’s Autumn past, I stand on Winter’s verge,

And daily lose what I desire to keep.”

The first white streaks in my hair, and the spectre of a small black spider floating before my eyes, foreboding diminished clearness of vision, certainly did induce melancholy reflections. At that period, it made me nervous to think about the approaches of old age; and when young people thoughtlessly reminded me of it, they cast a shadow over the remainder of the day. It was mournful as the monotonous rasping of crickets, which tells that “the year is wearing from its prime.” I dreaded age in the same way that I always dread the coming of winter; because I want to keep the light, the warmth, the flowers, and the growth of summer. But, after all, when winter comes, I soon get used to him, and am obliged to acknowledge that he is a handsome old fellow, and by no means destitute of pleasant qualities. And just so it has proved with old age. Now that it has come upon me, I find it full of friendly compensations for all that it takes away.

The period of sadness and nervous dread on this subject, which I suppose to be a very general experience, is of longer or shorter duration, according to habits previously formed. From observation, I judge that those whose happiness has mainly depended on balls, parties, fashionable intercourse, and attentions flattering to vanity, usually experience a prolonged and querulous sadness, as years advance upon them; because, in the nature of things, such enjoyments pass out of the reach of the old, when it is too late to form a taste for less transient pleasures. The temporary depression to which I have alluded soon passed from my spirit, and I attribute it largely to the fact that I have always been pleased with very simple and accessible things. I always shudder a little at the approach of winter; yet, when it comes, the trees, dressed in feathery snow, or prismatic icicles, give me far more enjoyment, than I could find in a ball-room full of duchesses, decorated with marabout-feathers, opals, and diamonds. No costly bridal-veil sold in Broadway would interest me so much as the fairy lace-work which frost leaves upon the windows, in an unceasing variety of patterns. The air, filled with minute snow-stars, falling softly, ever falling, to beautify the earth, is to me a far lovelier sight, than would have been Prince Esterhazy, who dropped seed-pearls from his embroidered coat, as he moved in the measured mazes of the dance.

Speaking of the beautiful phenomenon of snow, reminds me how often the question has been asked what snow is, and what makes it. I have never seen a satisfactory answer; but I happen to know what snow is, because I once saw the process of its formation. I was at the house of a Quaker, whose neat wife washed in an unfinished back-room all winter, that the kitchen might be kept in good order. I passed through the wash-room on the 16th of December, 1835, a day still remembered by many for its remarkable intensity of cold. Clouds of steam, rising from the tubs and boiling kettle, ascended to the ceiling, and fell from thence in the form of a miniature snow-storm. Here was an answer to the question, What is snow? This plainly proved it to be frozen vapor, as ice is frozen water. The particles of water, expanded by heat, and floating in the air, were arrested in their separated state, and congealed in particles. It does not snow when the weather is intensely cold; for the lower part of the atmosphere must have some degree of warmth, if vapor is floating in it. When this vapor ascends, and meets a colder stratum of air, it is congealed, and falls downward in the form of snow.

“The snow! The snow! The beautiful snow!” How handsome do meadows and fields look in their pure, sparkling robe! I do not deny that the winter of the year and the winter of life both have intervals of dreariness. The miserere howled by stormy winds is not pleasing to the ear, nor are the cold gray river and the dark brown hills refreshing to the eye. But the reading of Whittier’s Psalm drowns the howling of the winds, as “the clear tones of a bell are heard above the carts and drays of a city.” Even simple voices of mutual affection, by the fireside, have such musical and pervasive power, that the outside storm often passes by unheard. The absence of colors in the landscape is rather dismal, especially in the latter part of the winter. Shall I tell you what I do when I feel a longing for bright hues? I suspend glass prisms in the windows, and they make the light blossom into rainbows all over the room. Childish! you will say. I grant it. But is childishness the greatest folly? I told you I was satisfied with very simple pleasures; and whether it be wise or not, I consider it great good fortune. It is more fortunate certainly to have home-made rainbows within, especially when one is old; but even outward home-made rainbows are not to be despised, when flowers have hidden themselves, and the sun cannot manifest his prismatic glories, for want of mediums appropriate for their transmission.

But Nature does not leave us long to pine for variety. Before the snow-lustre quite passes away, March comes, sombre in dress, but with a cheerful voice of promise:

“The beechen buds begin to swell,

And woods the blue-bird’s warble know.”

Here and there a Lady’s Delight peeps forth, smiling at me “right peert,” as Westerners say; and the first sight of the bright little thing gladdens my heart, like the crowing of a babe. The phenomena of spring have never yet failed to replenish the fountains of my inward life:

“Spring still makes spring in the mind,

When sixty years are told;

Love wakes anew this throbbing heart,

And we are never old.”

As the season of Nature’s renovation advances, it multiplies within me spiritual photographs, never to be destroyed. Last year I saw a striped squirrel hopping along with a green apple in his paws, hugged up to his pretty little white breast. My mind daguerrotyped him instantaneously. It is there now; and I expect to find a more vivid copy when my soul opens its portfolio of pictures in the other world.

The wonders which summer brings are more and more suggestive of thought as I grow older. What mysterious vitality, what provident care, what lavishness of ornament, does Nature manifest, even in her most common productions! Look at a dry bean-pod, and observe what a delicate little strip of silver tissue is tenderly placed above and below the seed! Examine the clusters of Sweet-Williams, and you will find an endless variety of minute embroidery-patterns, prettily dotted into the petals with diverse shades of colors. The shining black seed they produce look all alike; but scatter them in the ground, and there will spring forth new combinations of form and color, exceeding the multiform changes of a kaleidoscope. I never can be sufficiently thankful that I early formed the habit of working in the garden with loving good-will. It has contributed more than anything else to promote healthiness of mind and body.

Before one has time to observe a thousandth part of the miracles of summer, winter appears again, in ermine and diamonds, lavishly scattering his pearls. My birthday comes at this season, and so I accept his jewels as a princely largess peculiarly bestowed upon myself. The day is kept as a festival. That is such a high-sounding expression, that it may perhaps suggest to you reception-parties, complimentary verses, and quantities of presents. Very far from it. Not more than half a dozen people in the world know when the day occurs, and they do not all remember it. As I arrive at the new milestone on my pilgrimage, I generally find that a few friends have placed garlands upon it. My last anniversary was distinguished by a beautiful novelty. An offering came from people who never knew me personally, but who were gracious enough to say they took an interest in me on account of my writings. That was a kindness that carried me over into my new year on fairy wings! I always know that the flowers in such garlands are genuine; for those who deal in artificial roses are not in the habit of presenting them to secluded old people, without wealth or power. I have heard of a Parisian lady, who preferred Nattier’s manufactured roses to those produced by Nature, because they were, as she said, “more like what a rose ought to be.” But I never prefer artificial things to natural, even if they are more like what they ought to be. So I rejoice over the genuineness of the offerings which I find on the milestone, and often give preference to the simplest of them all. I thankfully add them to my decorations for the annual festival, which is kept in the private apartments of my own soul, where six angel-guests present themselves unbidden,—Use and Beauty, Love and Memory, Humility and Gratitude. The first suggests to me to consecrate the advent of a new year in my life by some acts of kindness toward the sad, the oppressed, or the needy. Another tells me to collect all the books, engravings, vases, &c., bestowed by friendly hands on the preceding birthdays of my life. Their beauties of thought, of form, and of color, excite my imagination, and fill me with contemplations of the scenes they represent, or the genius that produced them. Other angels bring back the looks and tones of the givers, and pleasant incidents, and happy meetings, in bygone years. Sometimes, Memory looks into my eyes too sadly, and I answer the look with tears. But I say to her, Nay, my friend, do not fix upon me that melancholy gaze! Give me some of thy flowers! Then, with a tender, moonlight smile, she brings me a handful of fragrant roses, pale, but beautiful. The other angels bid me remember who bestowed the innumerable blessings of Nature and Art, of friendship, and capacity for culture, and how unworthy I am of all His goodness. They move my heart to earnest prayer that former faults may be forgiven, and that I may be enabled to live more worthily during the year on which I am entering. But I do not try to recall the faults of the past, lest such meditations should tend to make me weak for the future. I have learned that self-consciousness is not a healthy state of mind, on whatever theme it employs itself. Therefore, I pray the all-loving Father to enable me to forget myself; not to occupy my thoughts with my own merits, or my own defects, my successes, or my disappointments; but to devote my energies to the benefit of others, as a humble instrument of his goodness, in whatever way He may see fit to point out.

On this particular birthday, I have been thinking more than ever of the many compensations which age brings for its undeniable losses. I count it something to know, that, though the flowers offered me are few, they are undoubtedly genuine. I never conformed much to the world’s ways, but, now that I am an old woman, I feel more free to ignore its conventional forms, and neglect its fleeting fashions. That also is a privilege. Another compensation of years is, that, having outlived expectations, I am free from disappointments. I deem it a great blessing, also, that the desire for knowledge grows more active, as the time for acquiring it diminishes, and as, I realize more fully how much there is to be learned. It is true that in this pursuit one is always coming up against walls of limitation. All sorts of flying and creeping things excite questions in my mind to which I obtain no answers. I want to know what every bird and insect is doing, and what it is done for; but I do not understand their language, and no interpreter between us is to be found. They go on, busily managing their own little affairs, far more skilfully than we humans could teach them, with all our boasted superiority of intellect. I peep and pry into their operations with more and more interest, the older I grow; but they keep their own secrets so well, that I discover very little. What I do find out, however, confirms my belief, that “the hand which made them is divine”; and that is better than any acquisitions of science. Looking upon the world as a mere spectacle of beauty, I find its attractions increasing. I notice more than I ever did the gorgeous phantasmagoria of sunsets, the magical changes of clouds, the endless varieties of form and color in the flowers of garden and field, and the shell-flowers of the sea. Something of tenderness mingles with the admiration excited by all this fair array of earth, like the lingering, farewell gaze we bestow on scenes from which we are soon to part.

But the most valuable compensations of age are those of a spiritual character. I have committed so many faults myself, that I have become more tolerant of the faults of others than I was when I was young. My own strength has so often failed me when I trusted to it, that I have learned to look more humbly for aid from on high. I have formerly been too apt to murmur that I was not endowed with gifts and opportunities, which it appeared to me would have been highly advantageous. But I now see the wisdom and goodness of our Heavenly Father, even more in what He has denied, than in what He has bestowed. The rugged paths through which I have passed, the sharp regrets I have experienced, seem smoother and softer in the distance behind me. Even my wrong-doings and short-comings have often been mercifully transmuted into blessings. They have helped me to descend into the Valley of Humility, through which it is necessary to pass on our way to the Beautiful City. My restless aspirations are quieted. They are now all concentrated in this one prayer:

“Help me, this and every day,

To live more nearly as I pray.”

Having arrived at this state of peacefulness and submission, I find the last few years the happiest of my life.

To you, my dear friend, who are so much younger, I would say, Travel cheerfully toward the sunset! It will pass gently into a twilight,

which has its own peculiar beauties, though
differing from the morning; and you
will find that the night also
is cheered by friendly
glances of the
stars.

BRIGHT DAYS IN WINTER.
By J. G. WHITTIER.

Bland as the morning’s breath of June,

The southwest breezes play,

And through its haze, the winter noon

Seems warm as summer’s day.

The snow-plumed Angel of the North

Has dropped his icy spear;

Again the mossy earth looks forth,

Again the streams gush clear.

The fox his hillside den forsakes;

The muskrat leaves his nook;

The blue-bird, in the meadow-brakes,

Is singing with the brook.

“Bear up, O Mother Nature!” cry

Bird, breeze, and streamlet free;

“Our winter voices prophesy

Of summer days to thee.”

So in these winters of the soul,

By wintry blasts and drear

O’erswept from Memory’s frozen pole,

Will summer days appear.

Reviving hope and faith, they show

The soul its living powers,

And how, beneath the winter’s snow,

Lie germs of summer flowers.

The Night is mother of the Day;

The Winter of the Spring;

And ever upon old decay

The greenest mosses cling.

Behind the cloud the starlight lurks;

Through showers the sunbeams fall;

For God, who loveth all his works,

Has left his Hope with all.