From all, thy true servant deliver!
Nor let satisfaction depart from her cot;
Let her sing, if at ease, and be patient if not;
Be pleased when regarded, content when forgot,
Till the Fates her slight thread shall dissever.
[F] Terms used in Ombre, a game at cards.
GRANDFATHER’S REVERIE.
By THEODORE PARKER.
Grandfather is old. His back is bent. In the street he sees crowds of men looking dreadfully young, and walking fearfully swift. He wonders where all the old folks are. Once, when a boy, he could not find people young enough for him, and sidled up to any young stranger he met on Sundays, wondering why God made the world so old. Now he goes to Commencement to see his grandson take his degree, and is astonished at the youth of the audience. “This is new,” he says; “it did not use to be so fifty years ago.” At meeting, the minister seems surprisingly young, and the audience young. He looks round, and is astonished that there are so few venerable heads. The audience seem not decorous. They come in late, and hurry off early, clapping the doors after them with irreverent bang. But grandfather is decorous, well mannered, early in his seat; if jostled, he jostles not again, elbowed, he returns it not; crowded, he thinks no evil. He is gentlemanly to the rude, obliging to the insolent and vulgar; for grandfather is a gentleman; not puffed up with mere money, but edified with well-grown manliness. Time has dignified his good manners.