Elderly

“ And all the time the plain, perhaps the elderly man is speaking, he is shielding her from the eyes of the other people, and from her very soul she is grateful to him, and she holds up her head and smiles bravely. ”

“ I have always longed for the privileges of age,—since the days when it seemed to me that the elderly people ate all the hearts out of the watermelons. Now it suddenly occurs to me that I am at last entitled to claim them. ”

“ You are young, beautiful, and richly gifted in every respect, I am already an elderly man, and have nothing to offer you but a simple house, modest circumstances, and the participation in the care of five children. ”

“ Already ashamed of misfortunes which were not at all her own fault, she had resented his pinching of her ears, his facetious references to her worthless parents, his chuckings under the chin, and the other personal familiarities by which some elderly people fancy they are pleasing younger ones. ”

“ Old friends and church people still come for miles to pay their respects. Elderly colored folk stop by. I hear them all pray for my recovery, yet they know the matter is final. They go away sorrowful, despite all I can say to reassure them. ”

“ The elderly man thus addressed, glanced down at his legs, now propped up on a stool which someone had brought him, and smiled, with the pathos of the old who sees the interests of a lifetime slipping gradually away. ”

“ Here married people used to walk with their children, thinking and feeling themselves to be in the country; and here elderly gentlemen, like ourselves, with gold-headed canes or simple crutches, mused and meditated on the ongoings of the noisy lower world. ”

“ You two will grow older and older, and I shall remain where I am—always fifty-three. Then you will grow to be elderly—elderly people; at last, aged people. If you live long enough I shall look up to you as I would to my parents. ”

“ How far is this robust elderly man, living on his lands and desiring to live nowhere else, and the handsome younger man, whose life has been spent in the centre of all modern happenings,—how far are they what they appear to be, representative of the well-to-do classes of modern England ”

“ What different ideas are suggested to the mind on meeting with an elderly person whose gentle life is the centre of a family's tender care and affection, blessed and cherished by the circle of her friends: or to see a woman still in middle age, bed-ridden, anxious, desponding, and wretched ”

“ This youthful spirit must be contagious, for apparently the more elderly men do not permit themselves to become old, either in the business or the pleasures of life. Everything goes on with youthful vim and spirit. ”

“ The elderly gentlemen very promptly go to sleep when the text is given out, and they lean back in their respective corners with the full assurance that they will not be disturbed for at least an hour. ”

“ They are old enough now—such of them as survive to this day. None of that group who yet lives will ever see seventy-five again. In those times grown people would have called them middle-aged men, or, at the most, elderly men ”

“ They must let me tell my story in my own way, speaking of many little matters that interested or amused me, and which a certain leisurely class of elderly persons, who sit at their firesides and never travel, will, I hope, follow with a kind of interest. ”

“ At dawn the old man arose, dressed himself, and went forth to view the sun as it rose over the hills; while the youth slumbered on till nearly noon, and when he arose manifested no life nor interest till the evening meal was over. He partook largely of the bounties, and seemed so full of animation that the old man took courage, and smiles of satisfaction settled on his features; for he thought he had found a helper for himself and wife.
The next day they called him at sunrise, and after many efforts succeeded in arousing him from his sleep. ”

“ But the trained and artistic observer sees the peculiarly perfect outline of the old man's features and form, and in the tottering, gait bent shoulders, and soiled senility a straight, handsome youth, fastidious in his dress and perfect in his form. ”

“ And so I am looking forward to-night to an old age more peaceful, less turbulent, than my youth has been. I reach forward gladly, too, for life holds much that is sweet to old age, which youth can in no wise comprehend. ”

“ Commendable old age leaneth upon two staves—the one a remembrance of a life well led, the other a hope of eternal life. Take away these two staves, and old age cannot stand with comfort; pluck out the gray hairs of virtues, and the gray head cannot shine with any bright glory. ”

“ As a psychologist I am convinced that the psychic states of old people have great significance. Senescence, like adolescence, has its own feelings, thoughts, and wills, as well as its own physiology, and their regimen is important, as well as that of the body. Individual differences here are probably greater than in youth. ”

“ Old men were there, whose eyes were dim and senses failing—grandmothers, who might have died ten years ago, and still been old—the deaf, the blind, the lame, the palsied, the living dead in many shapes and forms, to see the closing of that early grave. ”

“ I have sometimes gazed upon an old man, just on the verge of eternity, perhaps seventy, eighty, or ninety years of age, and I have watched the beating of his pulse, the drawing of the breath and the sight of the eye. ”

“ Then Old Man said, "This will never do. There'll be people after a while. Something has to be done for them." So Old Man sent Sun, Moon, and the Stars up into the sky. He made them just what they are now. He said to them, "Henceforth you shall not desert people nor hide yourselves; you shall remain where everybody can see you, either by day or by night." ”

“ Henceforth he knows what his powers mean, what spiritual air they breathe, what ardors of service clear them of lethargy, relieve them of all sense of effort, put them at their best. After this fretfulness passes away, experience mellows and strengthens and makes more fit, and old age brings, not senility, not satiety, not regret, but higher hope and serene maturity. ”

“ The elder, who was about fifteen, seemed older than he was, not only from his height, but from the darkness of his complexion, and a certain proud, nay, imperious, expression upon features that, without having the soft and fluent graces of childhood, were yet regular and striking. ”

“ Here and there, within and without, old men are basking in the rare sweet warmth of summer, and with their canes and their sunshine seem very well bestowed. Now I like you, Mother Church. You do better by your old men than you do by your young women,—simply because you know more about them. ”

“ And gradually the old man ceased to resist her gentle persuasions, and, sitting down beside her, the bees humming round them, and the sun rising higher and higher in the sky, they conversed together in that perfect communion of soul which sometimes gilds the friendship of old age. ”

“ The old men, almost centenarians, whom we left in our dear native place, are living yet, and death has stricken down another victim, in the brightness of youth and future prospects, George D——, only six days older than I am, and who died far from his home. ”

“ Oh, I hope, if I should live to be over fifty, that I may be a pleasant old person. I hope my teeth will fit me, and the parting to my wave be always in the middle. I hope my fingers will always come fully to the ends of my gloves, and that I never shall wear my spectacles on top of my head. ”

“ I said to him, ‘I hope, sir, that you do not feel yourself unwell.’—‘Unwell!’ he replied, ‘to be sure I do. I am an old man; and old age is a disease that must end in death.’—‘But, sir,’ said I again, ‘though you may be advanced in years, yet you enjoy a tolerably good state of health ”

“ Here we see Death leading away, playing on a psaltery, an Old Man to the brink of the grave, bent under the load of years, and verging to the last degree of frailty. The Old Man allows himself to be carried off, with that calmness and tranquillity, which are the effects of wisdom, and the fruits of a good conscience. ”

“ My friends would be dead, or old, old people who had long forgotten me. Of what use would all this wealth be to me an old and forgotten friendless man. Old! yes, I must be an old, old man myself. And yet, now the fever had gone, I felt strong and vigorous indeed, the doctor had said that I was exceptionally strong and that I was not forty and the Consul too had said I was a "young, strong man!" ”

“ ON A SHOULDER OF THE 'OLD MAN' 'The ascent becomes dismally laborious here, so much so, that you are fain to lie down upon the soft, dry mountain grass, to recover breath, and while doing so, what objection can you have to a little conversation with the Old Man himself? ”

“ It was as if old age had come upon them lightly, bringing with it no burden of sadness, and that their days of work long over, they were content to lie idle in the kind warm sun, and to tell stories of the past. ”

“ The younger, beautiful! the deepest blue eyes in the world, with long fringed lashes, and the most perfect mouth you can imagine. The elder very pretty, too, but sad-looking, for she has a fearful lameness, poor thing! ”

“ At such times, were I to close my eyes, I should say to myself, 'What weary old man is thus venting his spleen against the ambition which has failed, and the love which has forsaken him?' Outwardly the very personation of youth, and revelling like a butterfly in the warmth of the sun and the tints of the herbage, why have you none of the golden passions of the young,—their bright dreams of some impossible love, their sublime enthusiasm for some unattainable glory? ”

“ III. This fatal stroke spoken of in the text may be our exit from this world. I hear aged people sometimes saying: "I can't live much longer." But do you know the fact that there are a hundred young people and middle-aged people who go out of this life to one aged person, for the simple reason that there are not many aged people to leave life? The aged seem to stand around like stalks—separate stalks of wheat at the corner of the field; but when death goes a-mowing, he likes to go down amid the thick of the harvest. ”

“ He rises to my mind the very ideal of age and decrepitude—a small, emaciated old man, very lame, his ashen and withered features surmounted sometimes by a cap, and sometimes by a small wig— always quiet and gentle in his manner. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now, most of these traits belong more to the ideal of old age than to that of any earlier period in life. The most advanced regimen and hygiene of to-day—personal, mental, moral, social, political, judicial, and even religious—have little better to suggest for old age, in which all the qualities here implied should culminate, bringing poise and philosophic calm. ”

“ The younger had been asked his opinion upon some point, and he was expanding with a flattered consciousness of the elder's perception of his importance, and toadying to him with the pleasure which all young men feel in winning the favor of seniors in their vocation. ”

“ I am old—there is not much left me now. Yes, I am old, my infirmities are upon me. Pray, good man, spare me my daughter. Nay, you must not break the peace of my house;" mutters the old man, advancing into the room, with infirm step, and looking wistfully at his daughter, as if eager to clasp her in his arms. ”

“ I suppose you have seen thirty years. It has been my experience, albeit I’m but fifteen years your senior and not therefore as old as a hill, that no man uproots a habit after he has reached middle age. ”

“ So that he had an official career lasting the number of years which our ancestors defined as coming between birth and the beginning of old age. Moreover, that last period of his old age was more blessed than that of his middle life, inasmuch as he had greater influence and less labour. For the crowning grace of old age is influence. ”