INEQUALITIES OF TIME

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thought. Many periods of life which might at first sight appear to be merely unused time are, in truth, among the most really valuable.

We have all noticed the curious fact of the extreme apparent inequalities of time, though it is, in its essence, of all things the most uniform. Periods of pain or acute discomfort seem unnaturally long, but this lengthening of time is fortunately not true of all the melancholy scenes of life, nor is it peculiar to things that are painful. An invalid life with its almost unbroken monotony, and with the large measure of torpor that often accompanies it, usually flies very quickly, and most persons must have observed how the first week of travel, or of some other great change of habits and pursuits, though often attended with keen enjoyment, appears disproportionately long. Routine shortens and variety lengthens time, and it is therefore in the power of men to do something to regulate its pace. A life with many landmarks, a life which is much subdivided when those subdivisions are not of the same kind, and when new and diverse interests, impressions, and labours follow each other in swift and distinct succession, seems the most long, and youth, with its keen susceptibility to impressions, appears to move much more slowly than apathetic old age. How almost immeasurably long to a young child seems the period from birthday to birthday! How long to the schoolboy seems the interval between vacation and vacation! How rapid as we go on in life becomes the awful beat of each recurring year! When the feeling of novelty has grown rare, and when interests have lost their edge, time glides by with an ever-increasing celerity. Campbell has justly noticed as a beneficent provision of nature that it is in the period of life when enjoyments

are fewest, and infirmities most numerous, that the march

of time seems most rapid.

The more we live, more brief appear

Our life's succeeding stages,

A day to childhood seems a year,

And years like passing ages.

The shortness of life is one of the commonplaces of literature. Yet though we may easily conceive beings with faculties both of mind and body adapted to a far longer life than ours, it will usually be found, with our existing powers, that life, if not prematurely shortened, is long enough. In the case of men who have played a great part in public affairs, the best work is nearly always done before old age. It is a remarkable fact that, although a Senate, by its very derivation, means an assembly of old men, and although in the Senate of Rome, which was the greatest of all, the members sat for life, there was a special law providing that no Senator, after sixty, should be summoned to attend his duty.' In the past centuries active septuagenarian statesmen were very rare, and in parliamentary life almost unknown. In our own century there have been brilliant exceptions, but in most cases it will be found that the true glory of these statesmen rests on what they had done before old age, and sometimes the undue prolongation of their active lives has been a grave misfortune not only to their own

1 Seneca, de Brevitate Vita, cap. xx.

LIFE OFTEN TOO LONG

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reputations, but also to the nations they influenced. Often, indeed, while faculties diminish, self-confidence, even in good men, increases. Moral and intellectual

failings that had been formerly repressed take root and spread, and it is no small blessing that they have but a short time to run their course. In the case of men of great capacities the follies of age are perhaps even more to be feared than the follies of youth. When men have made a great reputation and acquired a great authority, when they become the objects of the flattery of nations, and when they can, with little trouble, or thought, or study, attract universal attention, a new set of temptations begins. Their heads are apt to be turned. The feeling of responsibility grows weaker; the old judgment, caution, deliberation, self-restraint, and timidity disappear. Obstinacy and prejudice strengthen, while at the same time the force of the reasoning will diminishes. Sometimes, through a failing that is partly intellectual, but partly also moral, they almost wholly lose the power of realising or recognising new conditions, discoveries, and necessities. They view with jealousy the rise of new reputations and of younger men, and the well-earned authority of an old man becomes the most formidable obstacle to improvement. In the field of politics, in the field of science, and in the field of military organisation, these truths might be abundantly illustrated. In the case of great but maleficent genius the shortness of life is a priceless blessing. Few greater curses could be imagined for the human race than the prolongation for centuries of the life of Napoleon.

In literature also the same law may be detected. A writer's best thoughts are usually expressed long before extreme old age, though the habit and desire of production continue. The time of repetition, of diluted force,

and of weakened judgment—the age when the mind has lost its flexibility, and can no longer assimilate new ideas or keep pace with the changing modes and tendencies of another generation—often sets in while physical life is but little enfeebled. In this case, it is true, the evil is not very great, for Time may be trusted to sift the chaff from the wheat, and though it may not preserve the one, it will infallibly discard the other. While I live,' Victor Hugo said with some grandiloquence, but also with some justice, 'it is my duty to produce. It is the duty of the world to select, from what I produce, that which is worth keeping. The world will discharge its duty. I shall discharge mine.' At the same time, no one can have failed to observe how much in our own generation the long silence of Newman in his old age added to his dignity and his reputation, and the same thing might have been said of Carlyle if a beneficent fire had destroyed the unrevised manuscripts which he wrote or dictated when a very old man.

We are here, however, dealing with great labours, and with men who are filling a great place in the world's strife. The decay of faculty and will, that impairs power in these cases, is often perceptible long before there is any real decay in the powers that are needed for ordinary business or for the full enjoyment of life. But the time comes when children have grown into maturity, and when it becomes desirable that a younger generation should take the government of the world, should inherit its wealth, its power, its dignities, its many means of influence and enjoyment; and this cannot be fully done till the older generation is laid to rest. Often, indeed, old age, when it is free from grave infirmities, and from great trials and privations, is the most honoured, the most tranquil, and

perhaps on the whole the happiest period of life. The struggles, passions, and ambitions of other days have passed. The mellowing touch of time has allayed animosities, subdued old asperities of character, given a larger and more tolerant judgment, cured the morbid sensitiveness that most embitters life. The old man's mind is stored with the memories of a well-filled and honourable life. In the long leisures that now fall to his lot he is often enabled to resume projects which, in a crowded professional life, he had been obliged to adjourn; he finds (as Adam Smith has said) that one of the greatest pleasures in life is reverting in old age to the studies of youth, and he himself often feels something of the thrill of a second youth in his sympathy with the children who are around him. It is the St. Martin's summer, lighting with a pale but beautiful gleam the brief November day. But the time must come when all the alternatives of life are sad, and the least sad is a speedy and painless end. When the eye has ceased to see and the ear to hear, when the mind has failed and all the friends of youth are gone, and the old man's life becomes a burden not only to himself but to those about him, it is far better that he should quit the scene. If a natural clinging to life, or a natural shrinking from death, prevents him from clearly realising this, it is at least fully seen by all others.

Nor, indeed, does this love of life in most cases of extreme old age greatly persist. Few things are sadder than to see the young, or those in mature life, seeking, according to the current phrase, to find means of killing time.' But in extreme old age, when the power of work, the power of reading, the pleasures of society, have gone, this phrase acquires a new. significance. As Madame de