第52章
Oh, he is taking off his gold-bowed spectacles! Ah, he is divesting himself of his cravat! Why, he is stripping off his coat! Well, here he is, sure enough, in a tight silk shirt, and with two things that look like batter puddings in the place of his fists.Now see that other fellow with another pair of batter puddings, - the big one with the broad shoulders; he will certainly knock the little man's head off, if he strikes him.Feinting, dodging, stopping, hitting, countering, - little man's head not off yet.You might as well try to jump upon your own shadow as to hit the little man's intellectual features.He needn't have taken off the gold-bowed spectacles at all.Quick, cautious, shifty, nimble, cool, he catches all the fierce lunges or gets out of their reach, till his turn comes, and then, whack goes one of the batter puddings against the big one's ribs, and bang goes the other into the big one's face, and, staggering, shuffling, slipping, tripping, collapsing, sprawling, down goes the big one in a miscellaneous bundle.- If my young friend, whose excellent article I have referred to, could only introduce the manly art of self-defence among the clergy, I am satisfied that we should have better sermons and an infinitely less quarrelsome church-militant.A bout with the gloves would let off the ill-nature, and cure the indigestion, which, united, have embroiled their subject in a bitter controversy.We should then often hear that a point of difference between an infallible and a heretic, instead of being vehemently discussed in a series of newspaper articles, had been settled by a friendly contest in several rounds, at the close of which the parties shook hands and appeared cordially reconciled,But boxing you and I are too old for, I am afraid.I was for a moment tempted, by the contagion of muscular electricity last evening, to try the gloves with the Benicia Boy, who looked in as a friend to the noble art; but remembering that he had twice my weight and half my age, besides the advantage of his training, Isat still and said nothing.
There is one other delicate point I wish to speak of with reference to old age.I refer to the use of dioptric media which correct the diminished refracting power of the humors of the eye, - in other words, spectacles.I don't use them.All I ask is a large, fair type, a strong daylight or gas-light, and one yard of focal distance, and my eyes are as good as ever.But if YOUR eyes fail, I can tell you something encouraging.There is now living in New York State an old gentleman who, perceiving his sight to fail, immediately took to exercising it on the finest print, and in this way fairly bullied Nature out of her foolish habit of taking liberties at five-and-forty, or thereabout.And now this old gentleman performs the most extraordinary feats with his pen, showing that his eyes must be a pair of microscopes.I should be afraid to say to you how much he writes in the compass of a half-dime, - whether the Psalms or the Gospels, or the Psalms AND the Gospels, I won't be positive.
But now let rue tell you this.If the time comes when you must lay down the fiddle and the bow, because your fingers are too stiff, and drop the ten-foot sculls, because your arms are too weak, and, after dallying awhile with eye-glasses, come at last to the undisguised reality of spectacles, - if the time comes when that fire of life we spoke of has burned so low that where its flames reverberated there is only the sombre stain of regret, and where its coals glowed, only the white ashes that cover the embers of memory, - don't let your heart grow cold, and you may carry cheerfulness and love with you into the teens of your second century, if you can last so long.As our friend, the Poet, once said, in some of those old-fashioned heroics of his which he keeps for his private reading, -Call him not old, whose visionary brain Holds o'er the past its undivided reign.
For him in vain the envious seasons roll Who bears eternal summer in his soul.
If yet the minstrel's song, the poet's lay, Spring with her birds, or children with their play, Or maiden's smile, or heavenly dream of art Stir the few life-drops creeping round his heart, -Turn to the record where his years are told, -Count his gray hairs, - they cannot make him old!
END OF THE PROFESSOR'S PAPER.
[The above essay was not read at one time, but in several instalments, and accompanied by various comments from different persons at the table.The company were in the main attentive, with the exception of a little somnolence on the part of the old gentleman opposite at times, and a few sly, malicious questions about the "old boys" on the part of that forward young fellow who has figured occasionally, not always to his advantage, in these reports.
On Sunday mornings, in obedience to a feeling I am not ashamed of, I have always tried to give a more appropriate character to our conversation.I have never read them my sermon yet, and I don't know that I shall, as some of them might take my convictions as a personal indignity to themselves.But having read our company so much of the Professor's talk about age and other subjects connected with physical life, I took the next Sunday morning to repeat to them the following poem of his, which I have had by me some time.
He calls it - I suppose, for his professional friends - THEANATOMIST'S HYMN, but I shall name it - ]
THE LIVING TEMPLE.
Not in the world of light alone, Where God has built his blazing throne, Nor yet alone in earth below, With belted seas that come and go, And endless isles of sunlit green, Is all thy Maker's glory seen:
Look in upon thy wondrous frame, -
Eternal wisdom still the same!
The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves Flows murmuring through its hidden caves Whose streams of brightening purple rush Fired with a new and livelier blush, While all their burden of decay The ebbing current steals away, And red with Nature's flame they start From the warm fountains of the heart.
No rest that throbbing slave may ask, Forever quivering o'er his task, While far and wide a crimson jet Leaps forth to fill the woven net Which in unnumbered crossing tides The flood of burning life divides, Then kindling each decaying part Creeps back to find the throbbing heart.
But warmed with that uchanging flame Behold the outward moving frame, Its living marbles jointed strong With glistening band and silvery thong, And linked to reason's guiding reins By myriad rings in trembling chains, Each graven with the threaded zone Which claims it as the master's own.
See how yon beam of seeming white Is braided out of seven-hued light, Yet in those lucid globes no ray By any chance shall break astray.
Hark how the rolling surge of sound, Arches and spirals circling round, Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear With music it is heaven to hear.
Then mark the cloven sphere that holds All thought in its mysterious folds, That feels sensation's faintest thrill And flashes forth the sovereign will;Think on the stormy world that dwells Locked in its dim and clustering cells!
The lightning gleams of power it sheds Along its hollow glassy threads!
O Father! grant thy love divine To make these mystic temples thine!
When wasting age and wearying strife Have sapped the leaning walls of life, When darkness gathers over all, And the last tottering pillars fall, Take the poor dust thy mercy warms And mould it into heavenly forms!