86 BANQUET TO THE 



able achievements ; that is how he came to be chosen 

 as our leader. The boys all saw that few men in 

 our community had made a more striking or a more 

 durable mark than Colonel Wilder ; that few had held 

 more important public positions or sustained them- 

 selves more honorably in them, through so long a 

 course of years ; that it had fallen to the lot of few 

 of their comrades to initiate so many beneficent pub- 

 lic enterprises which have enured to the welfare of 

 the people among whom they have lived. 



Well, Sir, we think we have done something to 

 preserve his youthful freshness, and to keep alive 

 his keen relish for the social side of life ; and that, 

 I take it, is the real secret of a happy, a cheerful, 

 and a delightful old age. 



I recollect that many years since I had to read and 

 study two charming essays, written nearly two thou- 

 sand years ago by Cicero, the renowned, the eloquent 

 and silver-tongued orator and statesman of Rome, 

 one upon Friendship, the other upon Old Age ; and 

 the sweet and genial philosophy of those papers has 

 been something of a consolation to me all my life. 

 What is there in the poetry or the prose of man's life 

 on earth more lovely or more charming than a quiet, 

 contented, and dignified old age, cheered by the 

 friendship of the wise and good ? And why should 

 any rational or sensible being dread the approach of 

 old age, or try to hide from himself or others that he 



