THE PRIME OF LIFE.
T"" prime of life" is one of those elastic terms which literature does not help us to make definite. Swift spoke of a man of twenty-eight as already past his prime. George Eliot put it at about forty-four. In common parlance we should say it usually means in the forties. If we take the words in a purely physical sense, as we suppose they were taken in Swift's time, we should say that twenty-five was the prime of life. If we take them to mean the prime of character —the age when a man is most himself, when all his powers, mental and moral, are at their height, when, in fact, his individuality is most marked—it may be said to differ with different individuals, but it comes seldom before thirty. If by the prime of life we mean the easiest part, the bit of the journey which is least strenuous and most comfortable, it may well be doubted whether any part of middle life can be regarded as the prime. One of the early Fathers of the Church thought that all would be thirty-seven in the next world, no matter at what age they left this. That, rightly or wrongly, he held was the age at which our Lord was crucified, and was what he thought from his own experience the most perfect period of life. As he was so set upon this odd form of equality, it was not, we think, a bad selection to make. A world of young people would seem at first sight a more lively place, but we doubt whether in reality it would not be very dell. Only very strong indi- vidualities develop fully in youth. In fact, a character which appears to be strongly marked and highly coloured in childhood often seems to become blurred after the boys and girls are grown up. When youth is quite over the outline is once more visible. The truth is that when childhood is past the heavy band of fashion seeks to make all men alike, or rather to make them conform to a limited number of types. We dress as our neighbours dress, we endeavour to talk like them, we determine to behave like them, and we try to think like them. The result is a self- conscious uniformity. The specially good, the specially bad, and the specially gracious stand out always from the common herd. But it must be admitted that there are a vast number of young people who are, or strive to be, reduplicates of each other. While people are young it is almost always possible to " place " them, so to speak. Any shrewd observer can quickly tell where they belong intellectually, or even socially. He will label them when he sees them as items in a particular bunch. But when they are old they cease to be items and become individuals, and where they belong is the last instead of the first question which occurs to the mind of the shrewd observer in connexion with them. In these days of prolonged youth the time of bondage is proportionately long. Youth is a Trade Union which has many centres governed by one spirit. Half through the thirties, at the latest, experience sets these willing slaves at liberty, and for the first time since their childhood they are them- selves. After that period there comes a long pause. Only when the struggle of life is nearly over, when we are really growing old, comes sometimes another marked development in character.
On the whole, if we were doomed to live in a world where varieties in age were unknown, we think that thirty-seven would be the best age to make universal. A world without children would be a dull world. On the other hand, no one would wish for a world consisting only of children, because no one, oddly enough, ever wishes to be a child. When we say " no one" the words of the poet Vaughan recur to us ; but his feeling is a rare one. No one, certainly not the old, would wish to live in a world of old people; yet for some women, and perhaps more men, old age must, so far as character is concerned, be called the prime of life. Some characters are ruined by worldliness and others by harshness till they approach the end of life, when these two defects are outgrown. An old woman who has been called worldly is often a charming companion. A new and very quick growth of sympathy is fostered by a wide experience. At the eleventh hour she earns the reward of affection ; or, rather, her own affections, which have been confined within a narrow space, crowded out by the pleasures of life, spread over a larger surface. Much the same thing often happens with men of harsh mind. They shed their harshness with their energy, and all sorts of virtues not noticed before in their characters come to light and flourish. It is possible that excessive harshness and absorbing worldliness are both the result of circumstances, and prove a character not sufficiently strong to conquer them. Harshness is con- sidered to be a defect of strength, but we think it is more often nothing but uncontrollable emotion—a kind of regularly recurrent indignation, ae weak in reality as sentimentality itself. Worldliness in the sense of social ambition is, as a rule, an intellectual defect—a false sense of values which the education of life corrects. Most very late developed people have suffered morally from runs of luck. Roughly speaking, a normal mixture of happiness and trouble has the best effect upon character. We may just occasionally see some- thing approaching to perfection produced by either alone, but the ordinary curriculum of life tarns out the best article as a rule. The character becomes sun-parched by prosperity or is torn to tatters by recurrent storms. When the run of luck ends a man's individuality emerges again. In a sense he becomes once more a child. Old age is in itself a sufficient misfortune, but it precludes very often those fierce troubles which shake the mind in middle life. Also the law of averages will reassert itself if a man live long enough.
What, we wonder, would be the effect upon the world at large if the average length of life could be materially prolonged—if, for instance, a drug were found which would put off old age for another twenty years ? It is difficult to imagine a lengthening of any other time of life than middle age. It is the only period when the clock appears for a while to stop. Youth would not be youth if it were not fleeting. It would not be delightful, adorable, or even excusable. It must be evanescent. Old age is, again, a period of movement. We cannot imagine its indefinite prolongation. But at the top of the hill we might surely stop with advantage—with advantage, at any rate, to the community. Middle age makes for modera- tion. What Sir Thomas Browne calls "the furious face of things" would tend to disappear, and an immense increase of sympathy without passion, humour without hilarity, fervour without fanaticism, would take place. On the other hand, do we desire to give increased weight in the community to those with whom comfort has become essential, with whom conviction is shaken, and the power of combination has considerably lessened ? We are all to some extent educated by our children. We begin life with some prejudices which they tear from us. We hate, say, certain opinions, certain attitudes of mind, certain types of character. With pain we see our children approaching to these opinions, these attitudes, these types. The fact does not lessen our affection ; it destroys our prejudice. If we, in full vigour, could watch two generations grow up, should we not learn more ? The inevitable reaction of thought which sets in with each new generation would occur twice or three times tinder our eyes. The temptation to cynicism would be great. We might come to regard the hopes and foregone conclusions which make the glory of the great adventure as so many symptoms of youth. It is possible to be over-educated, to smother intuition under experience. Should we not, perhaps, come to know too much P
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