in continual see-saw of passion and disgust, but seek some
path on which the tendencies shall no longer oppose, but serve each
other to a common end. It demands that we shall not pursue broken ends,
but great and comprehensive purposes, in which soul and body may unite,
like notes in a harmonious chord. That were indeed a way of peace and
pleasure, that were indeed a heaven upon earth. It does not demand,
however, or, to speak in measure, it does not demand of me, that I
should starve my appetites for no purpose under heaven but as a purpose
in itself; or, if in a weak despair, pluck out the eye that I have
not learned to guide and enjoy with wisdom. The soul demands unity
of purpose, not the dismemberment of man; it seeks to roll up all his
strength and sweetness, all his passion and wisdom, into one, and make
of him a perfect man exulting in perfection. To conclude ascetically is
to give up, and not to solve, the problem.

*****

The best teachers are the aged. To the old our mouths are always partly
closed; we must swallow our obvious retorts and listen. They sit above
our heads, on life's raised dais, and appeal at once to our respect and
pity. A flavour of the old school, a touch of something different in
their manner--which is freer and rounder, if they come of what is called
a good family, and often more timid and precise if they are of the
middle class--serves, in these days, to accentuate the difference of age
and, add a distinction to grey hairs. But their superiority is founded
more deeply than by outward marks or gestures. They are before us in
the march of man; they have more or less solved the irking problem; they
have battled through the equinox of life; in good and evil they have
held their course; and now, without open shame, they near the crown and
harbour. It may be we have been struck with one of fortune's darts; we
can scarce be civil, so cruelly is our spirit tossed. Yet long before
we were so much as thought upon, the like calamity befel the old man or
woman that now, with pleasant humour, rallies us upon our inattention,
sitting composed in the holy evening of man's life, in the clear shining
after rain. We grow ashamed of our distresses, new and hot and coarse,
like villainous roadside brandy; we see life in aerial perspective,
under the heavens of faith; and out of the worst, in the mere presence
of contented elders, look forward and take patience. Fear shrinks before
them 'like a thing reprov