The worst of it would be,
however, that hardly a young person would read it. Now, we old people would
not like that. We can read young people's books and enjoy them: they would
not try to read old men's books or old women's books; they would be so sure
of their being dry. My dear old brothers and sisters, we know better, do we
not? We have nice old jokes, with no end of fun in them; only they cannot
see the fun. We have strange tales, that we know to be true, and which look
more and more marvellous every time we turn them over again; only
somehow they do not belong to the ways of this year--I was going to say
_week_,--and so the young people generally do not care to hear them. I have
had one pale-faced boy, to be sure, who will sit at his mother's feet, and
listen for hours to what took place before he was born. To him his mother's
wedding-gown was as old as Eve's coat of skins. But then he was young
enough not yet to have had a chance of losing the childhood common to the
young and the old. Ah! I should like to write for you, old men, old women,
to help you to read the past, to help you to look for the future. Now is
your salvation nearer than when you believed; for, however your souls may
be at peace, however your quietness and confidence may give you strength,
in the decay of your earthly tabernacle, in the shortening of its cords, in
the weakening of its stakes, in the rents through which you see the stars,
you have yet your share in the cry of the creation after the sonship.
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