AN OLD BOY TO THE YOUNG ONES.
o-day I'm sixty-nine—an Old Boy. But, bless you! I was three times as old—I thought so then—when I entered on my nineteenth year. I tell you, boys—but perhaps you know it already—that the oldest figure we ever reach in this world, the point at which we can look over the head of METHUSELAH as easy as you can squint at the pretty girls, is at eighteen and nineteen. Every body else around about that time amounts to little, and less, and nothing at all. What's the "old man"—your father, at forty-five—but an old fogy who doesn't understand things at all? Of course not; how could he be expected to? He didn't have the modern advantages. He didn't go to school at five, the dancing academy at seven; nor did he give stunning birthday parties at nine—not he. He didn't wear Paris kid-gloves in the nursery, learn to swear at the tailor at ten, smoke and "swell" at twelve, and flirt at Long Branch, Newport, or Saratoga at thirteen. The truth is—you think so—the Old Man was brought up "slow." And, to tell the truth, you had much rather not be seen with him outside the house.
You are "one of the boys" now. I was, fifty years since. A long time ago, that; but I've lived long enough to see and know that I was a great fool then. You'll come to that, if you don't run to seed before. I see now that what I then thought was smartness, was mere smoke; and it was a great deal of smoke with the smallest quantity of fire. The people I thought amounted to nothing, and whom I symbolized with a cipher, were merely reflections of my own small, addled brain. I, too, thought the old man slow, passé, stupid. I took him for a muff. He must have known I was twice that. What does one of the boys at nineteen care for advice? I didn't—you don't. It went in at the right ear and out over the left shoulder. Old gent said he'd been there; I said I was going. I did go. So did his money. My talent—if that's what you call it—was centrifugal, not centripetal. I was a radical out-and-outer, as to funds. I made lots of friends—you should have seen them. They swarmed— when there was any thing in my pocket. They left me alone in solitude at other times. At twenty-nine I got pretty well along in life. But I find I did not know so much as at nineteen. I had seen something of the world, and also something of myself. The more I saw and studied the latter individual, the less I thought of him. I began sincerely to believe he was a humbug. At thirty-nine, I knew he was; or rather had been. By that time he had begun to mend—had he? He had married, and there was call for mending, equally as to ways, means, and garments. From that hour I cultivated in different fields. My wild oats were all raked in. I was getting away from nineteen very rapidly—happily receding from the boy of that period. Mrs. BROWNGREEN beheld a man devoted to domestics and the dailies. The clubs I left behind me—twice a week. I was at home early—in the morning. I kept careful watch of my goings and comings—so did my curious neighbors. I had my family around me— also sheriffs and trades-people. I stood tolerably well in the community; for I was straight in those times even when in straits. But there was one stand I never did like to take—anywhere in sight of my tailors. They were ungrateful. I gave them any amount of patronage, and they turned on me and wanted me to pay for it. That's the way of the world. It wants much, and it wants it long; and when its bills come in, it is found to be the latter dimensions with an emphasis.
Well, boys, when you get out of the nineteens, you will begin to learn something. First of all, that you don't know much of any thing. That's the beginning of wisdom, though twenty is pretty well on to begin at a good school. You will learn that frogs are not so large as elephants, and that a gas-bag is sure to end in a collapse. You will learn that the greatest fool is he who thinks he sees such in everybody else. You will learn that all women are not angels, nor all people older than yourself "old fogies." You will see that humanity—or its best type—is not made of equal parts of assurance, twenty-five cent cigars, Otard punches, swallow-tail coats, and flash jewelry; and that the chances, in the proportion of nine to one, are that "one of the boys" at nineteen is one of the noodlest of noodles.
Truly, JEREMIAH BROWNGREEN,
An Old Boy of Sixty-nine.