As the years accumulate, the value of time presses itself on us with increasing force. Nothing in the world seems more precious. We grow miserly with our hours, as if by sheer reluctance we might delay the last faltering steps of old age and make it linger a little longer at the edge of the grave.
How can the river of life, which once seemed inexhaustible, run dry at all? It is hard to comprehend. Perhaps when every living spring within us has been spent, we can do little except retreat into memory. By then, whatever comes to hand, we cling to stubbornly. Whatever we see leaves us hollow. Whatever we hear no longer persuades us. The abundance of feeling that belongs to youth is gone, and everything takes on the same flat, tasteless aspect. The world appears like a painted witch, dressed up to entice us while our days slip away. The ease, delight, and happiness once granted by carefree youth vanish like a passing cloud.
Unless we are willing to deny the plainest truths, we cannot expect old age to bear fruits that youth itself could never produce. If we are spared violent misfortune, if we may leave quietly, if we can overcome the weakness and suffering that attend dying, and pass into another world with composure, then there is little more to ask. By the ordinary law of nature, we do not die all at once. For a long time we have already been surrendering our strength. In the history of a life, the powers of the body fall away thread by thread, and our attachments are relinquished one by one. Each year strips something from us; death merely hands over what remains to the earth. There is nothing extraordinary in such an ending. To die peacefully is as fitting and unobjectionable as the final act of a play.
In that sense, we become partly dead while still alive. To vanish at last without noise is hardly surprising. Even in our prime, how little remains of the things that struck us most deeply. One impression drives out another; one event follows and replaces the next. Think of the books we have read, the scenes we have witnessed, the sufferings we have undergone—how slight their lasting hold often proves to be.
When we are absorbed in a vivid romance or watching a compelling drama, our hearts can be shaken to the core. We are filled with noble, tender, solemn, and heartbreaking emotions. In such moments, it seems impossible that these feelings should ever fade. We imagine they will remain forever in the mind, or at least leave our thoughts forever tuned to their key. As page follows page, as scene follows scene, we feel that nothing afterward could disturb our resolve, that no turmoil at home or abroad could alter us.
And yet the illusion is fragile. Let us step out into the street, get splashed by the first bit of mud, be cheated of a couple of pence by the first cunning shopkeeper, and all those pure and elevated feelings disappear at once. The inward structure we relied on collapses. We fall victim to the mean and disagreeable conditions around us. Our thoughts remain trapped within the narrow circuit of daily life—petty, inconsistent, diminished—and to give them wings enough to rise toward anything lofty or severe requires immense effort.
This happens not only in decline, but in the very height of life. At that season, the mind is keen; every novelty excites us; our blood is quickened by everything fresh and stirring. Neither earth nor heaven seems sufficient for our desires, so restless are our appetites and expectations. Yet there are a few fortunate people whose temperament protects them from being harassed by trifles. Because little things do not torment them, they possess an inward ease, and around them there seems to linger something like a sacred harmony.
That alone is true peace. Without it, regret and vexation will pursue us anywhere. We may flee to a desert or hide ourselves on a stony mountain peak, and still gain nothing. With it, no such escape is needed. The only real retirement is tranquility of mind; the only real leisure is inward calm. For those who possess it, there is no essential difference between youth and the last feeble years of age. They leave the world with dignity and quietness, just as they lived in it—without noise, without complaint.