THE I NFL I -KN \'JED PEOPLE. 



67 



much amused with the business of the nursing, all other business having 



uuse them. 



Young people have a deal else to .amuse them, no doubt, and a family 

 of children often seems a great bother to them ; but the fact remains that 

 they arc ordained to cope with this particular business, and they alone 

 have the strength to bear with the ceaseless activity of childhood. Chil- 

 dren after a time fatigue the old. 



The other side of the picture is this, also. Old people are not alway.s 

 <!e, particularly old men, in a household. Grandpapa may be very 

 gouty and very cross, very unreasonable in his requirements, and uncertain 

 bo his hours. He may rap an unwary urchin over the head before he 

 knows it with his cane, and come down severely on the subject of the 

 girls' new dresses. If Grandpapa holds the purse-strings, he is a terrible 

 power. It is not often, however, that rich old men are disobeyed or neg- 

 lected. Human selfishness is too wary. 



Old men generally are not so agreeable in a household as old women. 

 They are caged lions, if disease has crippled them ; they torment them- 

 es and those with whom they live ; they feel the deprivation of that 

 I . >\ver and that importance which once made up their lives. They have 



>ps, cultivated the domestic virtues. 



uuch the better for the amenities of home if the household bear all 

 witli patience, and all try to remember all that Grandpapa did for 



lie was young and strong. No matter what are the d 

 traits of the old, we must bear them upon our young and strong ba 

 3 one of the privileges of home that we can do this duty, and help old 

 to bear its sorrows. How manifold are those evils the loss of si:, 

 Li-'uiLC, the aggravation of the nerves, the rheumatic pains : 

 J>r. Julms.m, in the "Rambler," says: "A Greek epigrammatist, intmd- 

 how the i i hat attend the last stage of man, imprecates n j 



foolish as t*> wish for long life the calamity of continuing 



from century to century. He thought that no adventitious or 



;>ain wa> iv|uisitc, th pi tilde itself was an epitome of what- 



li'ul, and nothing could be added to the curse of age but that 



led heyond its proper limits." 



" It Would lie well." says Coltoll, " it' old aife diminished our peiveptihil- 



pain in i proporlion that it d >es our seiisihilit, - t<> p 



1, if life i tenne.i those favoured !' 'lie most 



tunate guests who are noi compel] at the tall< v. hen they can 



no longer partake of the banquet. But t atone is that body and 



mind, like man and always agree to die together. It is had 



