Paul would understand at once. I leave it,
however.
I think I must have been the very happiest of the party myself. No doubt I
was younger much than I am now, but then I was quite middle-aged, with full
confession thereof in gray hairs and wrinkles. Why should not a man be
happy when he is growing old, so long as his faith strengthens the feeble
knees which chiefly suffer in the process of going down the hill? True, the
fever heat is over, and the oil burns more slowly in the lamp of life; but
if there is less fervour, there is more pervading warmth; if less of fire,
more of sunshine; there is less smoke and more light. Verily, youth is
good, but old age is better--to the man who forsakes not his youth when his
youth forsakes him. The sweet visitings of nature do not depend upon youth
or romance, but upon that quiet spirit whose meekness inherits the earth.
The smell of that field of beans gives me more delight now than ever it
could have given me when I was a youth. And if I ask myself why I find it
is simply because I have more faith now than I had then. It came to me then
as an accident of nature--a passing pleasure flung to me only as the dogs'
share of the crumbs.
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