M THE PROFESSOR'S PAPER1 Y friend, the Professor, began talking with me one day in a dreary sort of way. I couldn't get at the difficulty for a good while, but at last it turned out that somebody had been calling him an old man. He didn't mind his students calling him the old man, he said. That was a technical expression, and he thought that he remembered hearing it applied to himself when he was about twenty-five. It may be considered as a familiar and sometimes endearing appellation. An Irishwoman calls her husband "the old man," and he returns the caressing expression by speaking of her as "the old woman." But now, said he, just suppose a case like one of these. A young stranger is overheard talking of you as a very nice old gentleman. A friendly and genial critic speaks of your green old age as illustrating the truth of some axiom you had uttered with reference to that period of life. What I call an old man is a person with a smooth, shining crown and a fringe of scattered white hairs, seen in the streets on sunshiny days, stooping as he walks, bearing a cane, moving cautiously and slowly; telling old stories, smiling at present follies, living in a narrow world of dry habits; one that remains waking when others have dropped asleep, and keeps a little night-lamp-flame of life burning year after year, if the lamp is not upset, and there is only a careful hand held round it to prevent the puffs of wind from blowing the flame out. That's what I call an old man. Now, said the Professor, you don't mean to tell me that I This particular record is noteworthy principally for containing a paper by my friend, the Professor, with a poem or two annexed or intercalated. I would suggest to young persons that they should pass over it for the present, and read, instead of it, that story about the young man who was in love with the young lady, and in great trouble for something like nine pages, but happily married on the tenth page or thereabouts, which, I take it for granted, will be contained in the periodical where this is found, unless it differ from all other publications of the kind. Perhaps, if such young people will lay the number aside, and take it up ten years, or a little more, from the present time, they may find something in it for their advantage. They can't possibly understand it all now. 2 This is one of the essays included in "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." have got to that yet? Why, bless you, I am several years short of the time when-[I knew what was coming, and could hardly keep from laughing; twenty years ago he used to quote it as one of those absurd speeches men of genius will make, and now he is going to argue from it]-several years short of the time when Balzac says that men are-most-you know-dangerous tothe hearts of-in short, most to be dreaded by duennas that have charge of susceptible females. What age is that? said I, statistically. Fifty-two years, answered the Professor. Balzac ought to know, said I, if it is true that Goethe said of him that each of his stories must have been dug out of a woman's heart. But fifty-two is a high figure. Stand in the light of the window, Professor, said I. The Professor took up the desired position. You have white hairs, I said. Had 'em any time these twenty years, said the Professor. And the crow's-foot, pesanserinus, rather. The Professor smiled, as I wanted him to, and the folds radiated like the ridges of a half-opened fan, from the outer corner of the eyes to the temples. And the calipers, said I. What are the calipers? he asked, curiously. Why, the parenthesis, said I. Parenthesis? said the Professor; what's that? Why, look in the glass when you are disposed to laugh, and see if your mouth isn't framed in a couple of crescent lines-so, my boy (). It's all nonsense, said the Professor; just look at my biceps; -and he began pulling off his coat to show me his arm. Be careful, said I; you can't bear exposure to the air, at your time of life, as you could once. I will box with you, said the Professor, row with you, walk with you, ride with you, swim with you, or sit at table with you, for fifty dollars a side. Pluck survives stamina, I answered. The Professor went off a little out of humor. A few weeks afterwards he came in, looking very good-natured, and brought me a paper, which I have here, and from which I shall read you some portions, if you don't object. He had been thinking the matter over, he said—had read Cicero "De Senectute," and made up his mind to meet old age half-way. These were some of his reflections that he had written down; so here you have THE PROFESSOR'S PAPER There is no doubt when old age begins. The human body is a furnace which keeps in blast three-score years and ten, more or less. It burns about three hundred pounds of carbon a year (besides other fuel), when in fair working order, according to a great chemist's estimate. When the fire slackens life declines; when it goes out, we are dead. It has been shown by some noted French experimenters that the amount of combustion increases up to about the thirtieth year, remains stationary to about forty-five, and then diminishes. This last is the point where old age starts from. The great fact of physical life is the perpetual commerce with the elements, and the fire is the measure of it. About this time of life, if food is plenty where you live-for that, you know, regulates matrimony-you may be expecting to find yourself a grandfather some fine morning; a kind of domestic felicity that gives one a cool shiver of delight to think of, as among the not remotely possible events. I don't mind much those slipshod lines Dr. Johnson wrote to Thrale, telling her about life's declining from thirty-five; the furnace is in full blast for ten years longer, as I have said. The Romans came very near the mark; their age of enlistment reached from seventeen to forty-six years. What is the use of fighting against the seasons, or the tides, or the movements of the planetary bodies, or this ebb in the wave of life that flows through us? We are old fellows from the moment the fire begins to go out. Let us always behave like gentlemen when we are introduced to new acquaintances. Incipit Allegoria Senectutis Old Age, this is Mr. Professor; Mr. Professor, this is Old Age. Old Age: Mr. Professor, I hope to see you well. I have known you for some time, though I think you did not know me. Shall we walk down the street together? Professor (drawing back a little): We can talk more quietly, perhaps, in my study. Will you tell me how it is you seem to be acquainted with everybody you are introduced to, though he evidently considers you an entire stranger? Old Age: I make it a rule never to force myself upon a person's recognition until I have known him at least five years. Professor: Do you mean to say that you have known me so long as that? Old Age: I do. I left my card on you longer ago than that, but I am afraid you never read it; yet I see you have it with you. Professor: Where? Old Age: There, between your eyebrows-three straight lines running up and down; all the probate courts know that token-" Old Age, his mark." Put your forefinger on the inner end of one eyebrow, and your middle finger on the inner end of the other eyebrow; now separate the fingers, and you will smooth out my sign-manual; that's the way you used to look before I left my card on you. Professor: What message do people generally send back when you first call on them? Old Age: Not at home. Then I leave a card and go. Next year I call; get the same answer; leave another card. So for five or six-sometimes ten years or more. At last, if they don't let me in, I break in through the front door or the windows. We talked together in this way some time. Then Old Age said again: Come, let us walk down the street together-and offered me a cane, an eyeglass, a tippet, and a pair of over-shoes. No, much obliged to you, said I. I don't want those things, and I had a little rather talk with you here, privately, in my study. So I dressed myself up in a jaunty way and walked out alone -got a fall, caught a cold, was laid up with a lumbago, and had time to think over this whole matter. Explicit Allegoria Senectutis We have settled when old age begins. Like all nature's processes, it is gentle and gradual in its approaches, strewed with illusions, and all its little griefs soothed by natural sedatives. But the iron hand is not less irresistible because it wears the velvet glove. The button-wood throws off its bark in large flakes, which one may find lying at its foot, pushed out, and at last pushed off, by that tranquil movement from beneath, which is too slow to be seen, but too powerful to be arrested. One finds them always, but one rarely sees them fall. So it is our youth drops from us-scales off, sapless and lifeless, and lays bare the tender and immature fresh growth of old age. Looked at collectively, the changes of old age appear as a series of personal insults and indignities, terminating at last in death, which Sir Thomas Browne has called " the very disgrace and ignominy of our natures." My lady's cheek can boast no more No, no-this will never do. Talk about men, if you will, but spare the poor women. We have a brief description of seven stages of life by a remarkably good observer. It is very presumptuous to attempt to add to it, yet I have been struck with the fact that life admits of a natural analysis into no less than fifteen distinct periods. Taking the five primary divisions, infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, old age, each of these has its own three periods of immaturity, complete development, and decline. I recognize an old baby at once-with its "pipe and mug" (a stick of candy and a porringer)-so does everybody; and an old child shedding its milk-teeth is only a little prototype of the old man shedding his permanent ones. Fifty or thereabouts is only the childhood, as it were, of old age; the graybeard youngster must be weaned from his late suppers now. So you will see that you have to make fifteen stages at any rate, and that it would not be hard to make twenty-five; five primary, each with five secondary divisions. The infancy and childhood of commencing old age have the same ingenuous simplicity and delightful unconsciousness about them that the first stage of the earlier periods of life shows. The great delusion of mankind is in supposing that to be individual and exceptional which is universal and according to law. A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously. called an old man for the first time. Nature gets us out of youth into manhood, as sailors are hur |