YOUTH IN AGE. 3 



and past objects, get more shadowy, not as they 

 are more remote, as is the case with views in 

 space, but as they are nearer to the present 

 time. The man of fourscore may forget that he 

 was a man of threescore and ten ; but he never 

 forgets that he was a boy ; and one of the reasons 

 why very old people are so fond of the society of 

 children is, that the recollections of age, and even 

 manhood, are comparatively faint on their memo- 

 ries, and they actually remember, and think, and 

 enjoy themselves as children, after they cease to 

 find pleasure as men. 



We call those years of extreme age those lin- 

 gerings by the grave's brink, " a second child- 

 hood ;" and the thoughtless among us, regard the 

 appellation as one of pity, if not of derision. But 

 it partakes of that sound philosophy and perfect 

 wisdom which are contained in all proverbs and 

 by- words, which pass current among men, and are 

 sanctioned by the general voice. Why, indeed, is 

 it, that any expression becomes a proverb or by- 

 word ? Is it not just because the truth of it is so 

 plain and so striking, that every body, learned or 

 unlearned, assents to it at once ; and that it cleaves 

 to the memory, as if it were a fact of which our 

 own senses have been the immediate evidence ? 



There is something very delightful, as well as 

 something very instructive, in this revival of the 

 memory of youth in the very extreme of old age. 

 It is delightful to think that the mind is indepen- 

 dent of time, and not affected by that decay which 

 wastes the body, and in the end brings it to the 

 dust. Were there no other proof of the mind's 

 immortality no other hope of a life beyond the 

 grave, that alone would be a demonstration of it, 



