“What is such a fag-end of life worth, any way? Why not give up the struggle and die?”
“It is not for us to die when we choose,” replied the chestnut, “but to cherish what of life is left to us.”
A century rolled round. The chestnut had fallen and gone to dust, but now the oak had grown old. A yawning cleft down its trunk showed where the lightning had blasted it long years before. Its once mighty branches were decayed, and broken off by winter storms; only here and there a tuft of green remained amid the vast ruin. Viewing these sadly one day, it said:
“I am made to look back a hundred years! It is my turn now to be asked why I do not give up the struggle and die. Ah! how little I knew what my own lot was to be when I mocked another with the question!”
Let us not add to the burden which old age will lay upon us hereafter by want of sympathy for those who are bearing this burden now.
