in shrivelled yellow leather and printed in faded ink. "The world," say
the slippered pantaloon and the mumbling grandame, "was a fine place
when we were young." And what is more, they really believe it. He was
strong, fascinating and handsome--she was clever and beautiful. Both may
say so as often as they like, and everybody credits them--because they
are so old. _Comple et amur illam et amemus: plena est voluptatis si
illa scias uti_. Come, gentle Dotage! Shade me with thy kindly wing,
lend me thy rose-coloured horn-glasses! Let me view the Past, not as it
was, but as I would have had it. So shall the children cluster round my
knee, and listen, wide-eyed and envying, as I tell them of the golden
days of _my_ childhood, and the young people sigh, hearing of the brave
and brilliant, beautiful and noble things that never happened in the
bygone time when I was young. Only the middle-aged folk look a little
doubtful, and Death, leaning over the back of my armchair, laughs
outright, and taps me--as a reproving nurse might--on the withered lips
with one bony finger-tip. After which I fall asleep, and am carried away
to bed.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Alden philosophises.]

I have not been a child for several years; it is unnecessary to mention
the precise number, but I have a clear recollection of the period. My
childhood was certainly happy, so far as I was personally concerned, but
I will not go so far as to say that it was a source of unmixed happiness
to others. As to whether childhood is the happiest or the most miserable
part of our existence, there is so much to be said on both sides that I
am almost inclined to answer the question in a judicious and
statesmanlike way, by saying that I yield to no one in my profound
appreciation of the wide-reaching importance of the question, and that
the day will certainly come when the awakened conscience of the nation
will demand its settlement in accordance with right and justice. When
that time arrives I need hardly say that I shall be found on the side of
justice, but I am not yet wholly convinced that the time has fully
arrived. In the meantime, however, I do not hesitate to say that in
those cases where childhood is happier than mature age there can be but
little doubt among thinking men of all shades of belief that maturity
is, in some respects, at least less demonstrably happy than childhood.
Now that would be eminently judicious, but, on the ot