FOR THE RURAL MAGAZINE.
THE VILLAGE TEACHER.
The three great periods of life have each their natural and appropriate characteristic. The eager expectation, the buoyant hope and elastic energy, which lend their own joyous brilliancy to every object around them, and build in the unknown future so fair and beautiful a fabric of happiness, last not beyond the period of youth. The anxious brow, the cold and untrusting prudence, which succeed, but too surely indicate how many of our fairy visions have become dim in the reality; while the steady industry and calculating foresight with which manhood pursues more practical and perhaps grovelling objects, stamp upon it a peculiar character of strength, and seriousness, and sternness. As this relaxes in the course of years, our ability and inclination for active pursuits give way; and as the termination of our journey is approached, the hope of future distinction ceases, and we naturally fill up the void which is thus left in the mind, by a retrospect of our past actions.—Thus it is that the seasons of life, like those of the year, are each most beautiful in its own proper adornings, and that there is none more delightful or endearing than reverend age. The long experience which has tried the worthlessness of so many empty and vanishing hopes, and which can pronounce with certainty respecting that which remaineth; the knowledge of those past events, that form the link as it were between us and history, and which not only aids us in deciphering the past, but is endued with a prophetic gift; the attempered zeal, the tranquil repose of the passions, so finely and happily compared to the decline of day—impart their pure and elevated feelings to the mind of the beholder.
It is in such society that youth may best learn to prune the luxuriance of its hopes, and manhood to elevate its views beyond the narrow scene of action where they now expatiate. It is in age that the noble instinct of immortality is most conspicuous, that we feel most surely that the horizon of this life cannot bound our mental vision. The consolations of youth and manhood may have no higher source than in surrounding objects—in love, or friendship, or ambition; but age is dead to these impulses, and must be reanimated and warmed by the influences of the life which is to come.
Such an old age is that of my friend Parmenio. He has survived nearly all the companions of his childhood, and seen successive generations swept away before him. After a life of useful and honourable enterprise, he has retired to end his days in our little hamlet amidst the scenes of his earliest youth. He has dandled on his knee the fathers of many who now look up to him for counsel and friendship, yet is there no supercilious air of dignity or reserve about him. His placid eye bespeaks the serenity of his soul, and the hope which abideth there; and though you see in his sprightliness and activity the energy of his earlier life, it is most happily blended with the meekness and tranquillity of age. He wears away his remaining years in the social converse of his children and their friends, and looks forward to his close without fear or anxiety.
I often meet him in my solitary evening walks, and we usually finish them together. We were loitering one evening on the brow of the hill which overlooks the course of a beautiful stream that flows at a small distance from the village, and marking the glories of an autumnal sunset.—"The sands," said he, "are fast ebbing in my glass, and I feel that my allotted days are but few. I have past a life of bustling activity, and seen a thousand forms of hope and happiness rise and vanish before me. They have all vanished—all, but that which is centered in heaven. I am not a votary of that vain philosophy which would pronounce all things to be vanity; yet could my voice be heard by the myriads of human beings who are wasting the sinews of life in the pursuit of wealth and power, I would warn them, from my own experience, that happiness is not in these things. Were I to guide the course of a young person, I would bid him extend this view, from the first, beyond the horizon of this world. I would tell him of the utter emptiness of all human distinctions. I would bid him pursue his avocations as a means only of health and support, and of invigorating his mind. I would turn his feet from the paths of fame and wealth, to those of retirement and privacy, and would there feed his soul with immortal contemplations. Thus would I fit him to ennoble his youth, to preserve his manhood unspotted, and to enjoy his age. How many events are there in the course of my own life, which I would now give the world to have prevented—duties undone, labour misapplied, talents wasted, feelings perverted; and all from sharing in the delusions to which the world around me is a victim. In how many events which I once thought were accidents or misfortunes, do I now trace an invisible hand, guiding me against my will, and pointing to that path of unostentatious virtue which He delights to bless. These things, however, cannot be recalled; and as yonder sun, after a cold and cloudy career, is setting at last in serene and tranquil beauty, and throwing his own glorious hues upon the clouds which darkened his mid-day splendour; so do I feel that my latter days are peaceful, and that the lights of experience and wisdom, though late, are yet illuminating my past errors, and enabling me to point them out as beacons and waymarks to those that surround me."
Extract of a Letter from William Coxe, Esq. on the Cultivation of the Sugar Maple.
Burlington, March 7th, 1820.