[TO TRY EDITOR OF T111 "SPECTATOR "] SIR,—The paper on "
Youth and Age " which I enclose was written by Miss Frances Power Cobbe, and given to me by her a few months prior to her death. I cannot help thinking it may interest some of the many readers of the Spectator, therefore venture to offer it you for publication.—I am, Sir, &c., CONSTANCE BATTERSEA. The Pleasaunce, Overstrand, Cromer.
YOUTH AND AGE.
Youth has hope and faith. Old age has charity. In youth we love up. In age we love down. In youth admiration is the key- note of our affections,—whether it be for physical, mental, or moral beauty. In age pity and sympathy are the mainsprings of our tenderness. The judgments of youth are hard and hasty. The judgments of age are indulgent, hesitating. In youth affection moves the hands to caress and the lips to kiss. In age it only inspires the tongue to speak kind words. In youth we can hate our enemies. In age we either despise or dread them. Youth has anger. Age scarcely churns up anything stronger than annoyance. In youth our joys are sunshine. In age such joys as are left us are moonlight, reflected from the joys of those dear to us. In youth we pine to receive more love. In age we wish we had more love to give. Youth makes confidants and insists that those it loves should know all its faults and follies. Age has no such imprudent tendencies, and never justifies La Rochefoucauld's saying, " On aime mieux dire du mal de soi-meme que de n'en point puler." In youth the mind is agile. In n‘ the mind is stiff like the body. It can still walk straight she ; but it cannot jump or dance or twist about swiftly. In youth our animal spirits are raised by a variety of duties and pleasures in rapid succession. We pass from one to another joyously excited by the bustle and stir of change. In age we are distressed by being hurried from one occupation of our thoughts or hands to another ; and onr spirits droop instead of rising under the sense of our inability to flit from business to business, or even from pleasure to pleasure. In youth our memory for what we see and hear depends on the vividness of the impression made upon us, and (as all impressions are then fresh and new) many things are vividly recorded. In age the recollections of youth remain sharply cut, and also those of later events (but they are few) in which our feelings have been interested as keenly as in youth. But the many things in which we did not take equal interest have not left much impress, and are forgotten. The moral life of youth is like mountain climbing. It is all ups and downs, over untried paths and slippery places. We make many false steps, and sometimes we slip back and fall prostrate and lie a while with our lips in dust. But again we rise and struggle onward and uphill, and as we gain the heights we have glimpses of heaven overhead. The moral life of age is all on a beaten road and in the ruts of habit. There is Eery little struggle and perhaps no conscious slips or falls, for custom alone and regard for the consistency of our characters are generally sufficient without any effort or merit to keep us walking straight along the flat familiar way. But we have no longer the intense experiences of divine help; we see no longer the vast horizons of heaven and earth beheld in the hours of vision from the mountain tops. The griefs of youth bring despair, for all life lies before us in which we shall suffer from them. The griefs of age bring desolation ; but we know there is only a little time in which we shall feel them.
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