There are of course some lives which diminish in value as old age advances, in which one pleasure fades after another, and even those which remain gradually lose their zest; but there are others which gain in richness and peace all, and more, than that of which time robs them.
The pleasures of youth may excel in keenness and in zest, but they have at the best a tinge of anxiety and unrest; they cannot have the fulness and depth which may accompany the consolations of age, and are amongst the richest rewards of an unselfish life.
For as with the close of the day, so with that of life; there may be clouds, and yet if the horizon is clear, the evening may be beautiful.
Old age has a rich store of memories. Life is full of
"Joys too exquisite to last,
And yet more exquisite when past." [1]
Swedenborg imagines that in heaven the angels are advancing continually to the spring-time of their youth, so that those who have lived longest are really the youngest; and have we not all had friends who seem to fulfil this idea? who are in reality—that is in mind—as fresh as a child: of whom it may be said with more truth than of Cleopatra that
"Age cannot wither nor custom stale
Their infinite variety."
"When I consider old age," says Cicero, "I find four causes why it is thought miserable: one, that it calls us away from the transaction of affairs; the second, that it renders the body more feeble; the third, that it deprives us of almost all pleasures; the fourth, that it is not very far from death. Of these causes let us see, if you please, how great and how reasonable each of them is."
To be released from the absorbing affairs of life, to feel that one has earned a claim to leisure and repose, is surely in itself no evil.
To the second complaint against old age, I have already referred in speaking of Health.