AN OCTOGENARIAN SMOKEK. 69 



and the fragments are thrown out of the window, or swept 

 out at the door, who can fail to see in this, the type of 

 life's closing scene ? the body broken by disease and death, 

 carried away and hidden in the earth, to remain among the 

 useless rubbish of the past, to be seen no more forever ? 

 Yes, yes 1 there is a great deal of philosophy in a pipe, if 

 people will take pains to study it. 



" I have a pleasant time of it once or twice a year with 

 an old gentleman, living away in the country ; one whom 

 memory calls up from the dim and shadowy twilight of my 

 earliest recollections, as a tall stalwart man, already the 

 head of a family with little children around him. Those 

 who were then little children have grown up to be men and 

 women, and have drifted, away upon the currents of life, 

 themselves fathers and mothers, with grey hairs gathering 

 upon their heads. I visit this venerable philosopher in his 

 hearty and green old age, every summer. I see him now, in 

 my mind's eye, sitting under the spreading branches of the 

 trees planted by himself half a century ago, which cast their 

 shadows upon the pleasant lawn in front of his dwelling 

 discussing politics, morals, history, religion, philosophy 

 recounting anecdotes of the early settlement of the county 

 of which he was a pioneer : and I see how calmly and 

 deliberately he smokes, while he calls up old memories from 

 the shadowy past, discoursing wisely of the present, or 

 speaking prophetically of the future. I saw him last in 

 July of the past year, and he seemed to have changed in 

 nothing. He had not grown older in outward seeming. His 



