In considering the different ages of life, the first sentiment I feel, is gratitude for the variety of pleasures, destined for us by nature. Thrice happy for us, if we knew how to taste the charms of all the situations through which we pass! Instead of this, we first regret infancy,[164] then youth, then mature age. The happy period is always that which is no more.
It is a great folly to sadden the present, in looking back upon the past, as though it had been darkened by no shadow of a cloud. The sorrows which nature sends us in infancy, resemble spring showers, the traces of which are effaced by a passing breeze. The pains and alarms of each age have been chiefly the work of men. Who cannot remember the violent palpitations which he felt, when, exposed to the searching eye of his companions, he went forward to excuse his not having prepared his task, his translation or theme, at school? I have seen situations more perilous, since that time, but no misfortunes have awakened more bitterness, than the preference granted by the professor to the theme of another over mine. The beautiful age, for a frivolous being, is youth; for the ambitious, maturity; for the recluse, old age; for a reasonable man, each age: for heaven has reserved peculiar pleasures for each.
The second sentiment I experience, in contemplating life, is, regret to see the moments so rapidly gliding away. Time flies, and days and years steal away as rapidly as hours. Still, some complain of the burden of time, and endure cruel suffering from not knowing how to employ it.
To prolong my days, I will neither ask the elixir of life from alchymists, nor precepts from physicians. A severe regimen tends to abridge life. Multiplied privations give a sadness to the spirit, more noxious than the prescribed remedies are salutary. Besides, what is physical without moral life; that is to say, improvement and enjoyment? Physicians vaunt the miracles of abstinence[165] and a careful regimen in the case of Cornaro, the Venetian, who was born dying, and yet spun out the thread of life with so much care that he vegetated a century. To attain this result, he weighed his aliment, and marked every hour of the day, with the most minute exactness. Bacon cites the case, but jests upon a man who believed himself living, because, in fact, he was not dead.
Moderation, cheerfulness and the happy employment of time furnish the best means of living as many days as nature permits; and the regimen of philosophic moralists has an effect more certain than that of physicians.[57]
Every one has observed that a year in youth presents a long perspective; and that the further we advance in our career, the more the course of time seems to accelerate. Let us strive to investigate the causes which so modify our judgments, with a view, if it be possible, to avoid them.
There is one inevitable cause—experience. At sixteen, what an illimitable prospective space is seen in the sixteen years that are to succeed! The termination of the latter period is lost to vision in the future, as the commencement of the first years are effaced from the memory of the past. But, in touching the goal which seemed so distant, we have discovered a scale by which the mind’s eye measures the future. Impatient youth, burning to overleap the interval which separates the object from the desires, strives to accelerate the tardy hours. In mature age, on the contrary, seeing every day bringing us nearer the termination of our career, we begin to regret the want of power to arrest the march of time. Thus our weakness hastens the flight which we[166] desire to delay. Let us be less fearful of the uncertain future, and the hours will lose their desolating swiftness.
Finally, in our youth, all objects being new, produce the vivid impression of novelty. Every instant is filled with landmarks of memory, because in every instant a new sensation is produced, and a new link in the chain of the succession of ideas. As we advance in time, objects imperceptibly cease to excite our curiosity. We pass by beautiful objects and striking events which once filled us with transport or surprise, with a carelessness which fails to fix them in our memory. We return mechanically to the occupations of the preceding day, scarcely noting the transit of those monotonous periods which were rendered remarkable neither by ennui nor pleasure. Let us avoid this mental carelessness, which gives new speed to the flight of time, and is so fatal to happiness. Friends of humanity, of literature, of the arts and true enjoyment, let us preserve the mind in its freshness, the imagination in its youthful brilliancy. Let us thus arrest the happy moments; and let us preserve the enthusiasm of youth enlightened by the taste of mature age, for everything which merits our admiration.[58]
If we desire that our days should not be abridged, we must love retreat. The immediate result of this shelter is to keep off a crowd of officious and indolent people. There are thos............