XVII 



THE SPELL OE THE PAST 



~r NOTICE that as a man grows old he is more 

 and more fond of quoting his father, — what he 

 said, what he did. It has more and more force or 

 authority with him. It is a tribute to the past. 

 Not until one has reached the meridian of life or 

 gone beyond it, does the spell of the past begin to 

 creep over him. 



Said a middle-aged woman to me the other day, 

 " Old people are beginning to look very good to 

 me ; I like to be near them and to hear them talk." 

 It is a common experience. I have seen many a 

 granny on the street whom I felt like kidnapping, 

 taking home, and seating in my chimney corner, for 

 the sake of the fragrance and pathos of the past 

 which hovered about her ; for the sake also, I sup- 

 pose, of the filial yearning which is pretty sure to 

 revive in one after a certain time. 



No woman can ever know the depths of her love 

 for her mother imtil she has become a mother 

 herself, and no man knows the depths of his 

 love for his father until he has become a father. 

 When we have experienced what they experienced, 

 when we have traveled over the road which they 



