the peaceful shore of eternity. It always seems
to me that at fourscore a man is neither in this
world nor in the next, but that he is in a position
between the two, and can look calmly upon
both.

I wonder if I am right in my impression that
very old men are mostly cheerful. I hope I am;
for I love to think so. It is pleasant to believe
that human nature can work out its own
purification on earth and return to its original
innocence, with only such sins on its head as it
cannot help and is not responsible for. Right or
wrong it is certain that this is the impression
which most of us have of persons in extreme
old age. We fondle them as we fondle children,
we talk to them as we lead them about by the
hand, as their parents talked to them when they
were first learning to walk. They need help and
care now just as they needed them then. There
is grandfather sitting in his chair by the fire,
seeing things dimly, hearing things vaguely, as
he saw and heard from his mother's knee. And
we sit by and talk of him as if he did not hear
us and understand what we say. "Poor old
grandfather," we say, looking towards him; "he
is failing very much. He can't see to read now
even with his specs, and that is a great deprivation
to him. But he is cheerful for all that.
Ain't you, grandfather dear?"

And the dear old baby knows by the sound of
your voice and the look that you direct towards
him that you are addressing him; and he
endeavours to guess your meaning, and says
something in reply, accompanying it with a pleasant
chuckle, to signify that he is quite happy.

He drops his handkerchief or his spectacles,
just as a baby drops its spoon or its ivory ring,
and you go and pick them up and put them back
into his old hand, patting him on his bald head,
and making him comfortable in his chair. As
he sits there mumbling, and gazing with his
viewless eyes into the fire, you wonder if that
feeble old man could ever have been the restless,
fidgety, madcap schoolboy, the ardent lover
sighing like furnace, the fierce soldier, bearded
like the pard, full of strange oaths, seeking the
bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth?
Where be his pranks now, where his sighs, his
big loud voice? All these things have passed
away like a dream, and in old age he awakes
again to infancy.

I think it must be pleasant to sit upon the
last shore thus and wait for the boat, not
impatient for, neither dreading its coming, pleasant
to hear the plash of the oars and the distant
song of the rowers as they come to bear you
away to that golden land where youth is eternal.
I should find it difficult to talk of old
grandfathers otherwise than in this strain, for I have
never known an old grandfather who, whatever
his previous life, did not wear an aspect of
innocence. Age is not altogether unkind.
While it withers the beauty it also expunges the
traces of the evil passions. The film that comes
over the eye is a veil to hide the glare of anger;
the wrinkles that score the brow are strokes of
Time's pen designed to obliterate the frown and
the scowl that Passion has written there so
boldly. I can recal many grandfathers who
were a practical testimony to the soundness of
the theory which I have just broached with
regard to the purifying influence of age. I
remember one, a little feeble, cheery, merry-
hearted old fellow, who had been a terrible Turk
in his young days. He had been passionate,
imperious, violent, a constant source of trouble
to his wife, and a terror to his children. When
he became an old grandfather he was
transformed into the most docile creature imaginable.
His own little grandchildren could rule him and
make him do just as they liked.

"Do you remember, grandfather," one of
them would say, "when you used to give it to
your boys all round with the horsewhip?"

"No, no, my dear," he would answer, "I
hope I never did that."

"Oh, but you did, grandfather, and
grandmother says you used to get drunk and break
the chimney ornaments."

"Oh, fie, fie, no, my dear," says the old man,
"it couldn't have been me, it must have been
somebody else."

And granny strikes in and affirms that he did
the deed, completely smashing two china
shepherdesses that had been in the family for a century.
Which relation sends the old man into a fit of
laughter so hearty and good humoured that you
cannot conceive he could ever have been capable
of the violent conduct imputed to him. I dare
say he can scarcely believe it himself now, when
age has cast the devil out of him.

I remember another grandfather whose ninety-
second birthday was celebrated not many years
ago in the house of his granddaughter. He was
a picture of aged innocence, gentle, patient,
affectionate, and docile as a child. But he had
been, as he himself confessed with a sigh, a
"roarer" in his day—a sad dog among the
women, sir, a six-bottle man, a beater of the watch,
a night-brawler, a swaggerer, ever ready to eat
fire and resent the slightest insult with lead or
steel.

And there he was, on his ninety-second birthday,
propped up at table, with a napkin tied
round his neck. The swaggerer, who was so
ready with sword and pistol, cannot now be
trusted with a knife and fork. His food has
been cut up for him, and he is eating it with a
spoon. The six-bottle man is meekly drinking
toast-and-water, weakly flavoured with brandy,
from a mug. He cannot grasp a tumbler now,
and finds it convenient to have a drinking vessel
with a handle. He who had been a sad dog among
the women, sir, and ruined so many reputations,
grows faint before the feast is over, and feebly
calls to his granddaughter to come and support
him. And there he lies, like a weak child,
nestling his palsied head on her bosom—the gay
Lothario!

I sometimes wonder what is meant by the
commandment which says, "Honour thy father
and thy mother: that thy days may be long in
the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee."
Does it mean that they who honour father and