rfully from the
approaching future, I cannot tell. You are getting into years. True.
But you are getting out again. The bowed frame, the tottering step,
the unsteady hand, the failing eye, the heavy ear, the tremulous voice,
they will all be yours. The grasshopper will become a burden, and
desire shall fail. The fire shall be smothered in your heart, and for
passion you shall have only peace. This is not pleasant. It is never
pleasant to feel the inevitable passing away of priceless possessions.
If this were to be the culmination of your fate, you might indeed take
up the wail for your lost youth. But this is only for a moment. The
infirmities of age come gradually. Gently we are led down into the
valley. Slowly, and not without a soft loveliness, the shadows
lengthen. At the worst these weaknesses are but the stepping-stones in
the river, passing over which you shall come to immortal vigor,
immortal fire, immortal beauty. All along the western sky flames and
glows the auroral light of another life. The banner of victory waves
right over your dungeon of defeat. By the golden gateway of the
sunsetting,

"Through the dear might of Him who walked the waves,"

you shall pass into the "cloud-land, gorgeous land," whose splendor is
unveiled only to the eyes of the Immortals. Would you loiter to your
inheritance?

You are "getting into years." Yes, but the years are getting into
you,--the ripe, rich years, the genial, mellow years, the lusty,
luscious years. One by one the crudities of your youth are falling off
from you,--the vanity, the egotism, the isolation, the bewilderment,
the uncertainty. Nearer and nearer you are approaching yourself. You
are consolidating your forces. You are becoming master of the
situation. Every wrong road into which you have wandered has brought
you, by the knowledge of that mistake, so much closer to the truth.
You no longer draw your bow at a venture, but shoot straight at the
mark. Your purposes concentrate, and your path is cleared. On the
ruins of shattered plans you find your vantage-ground. Your broken
hopes, your thwarted schemes, your defeated aspirations, become a staff
of strength with which you mount to sublimer heights. With
self-possession and self-command return the possession and the command
of all things. The title-deed of creation, forfeited, is reclaimed.
The king has come to his own again. Earth and sea and sky pour out
their largess of love. Al