Old man

“ An old man enters—an old, bent, withered man—holding a lamp above his head, and I look at his face, and it is my own face. And another enters, and he also is myself. Then more and more, till the room is thronged with faces, and the stair-way beyond, and all the silent house. Some of the faces are old and others young, and some are fair and smile at me, and many are foul and leer at me. And every face is my own face, but no two of them are alike. ”

“ OLD MAN OLD Man, or Lad's-love,—in the name there's
nothing
To one that knows not Lad's-love, or Old Man,
The hoar-green feathery herb, almost a tree,
Growing with rosemary and lavender.
Even to one that knows it well, the names
Half decorate, half perplex, the thing it is:
At least, what that is clings not to the names
In spite of time. And yet I like the names.
The herb itself I like not, but for certain
I love it, as some day the child will love it
Who plucks a feather from the door-side bush
Whenever she goes in or out of the house. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Look back in fancy at the faces blending there—the old man's and the boy's—and, with the nimbus of the smoke-wreaths round the brows, the gilding of the firelight on cheek and chin, and the rapt and far-off gazings of the eyes of both, why, but for the silver tinsel of the beard of one and the dusky elf-locks of the other, the faces seem almost like twins.
With such a view of age, one feels like whipping up the lazy years and getting old at once. In heart and soul the old man is not old—and never will be. ”

“ And so it is, Old Man, that you are always touching the very tenderest places in our hearts— unconsciously appealing to our warmest sympathies, and taking to yourself our purest love. We look upon your drooping figure, and we mark your tottering step and trembling hand, yet a reliant something in your face forbids compassion, and a something in your eye will not permit us to look sorrowfully on you. ”

“ Though narrow be that Old Man's cares, and near,
The poor Old Man is greater than he seems:
For he hath waking empire, wide as dreams;
An ample sovereignty of eye and ear.
Rich are his walks with supernatural cheer ”

“ The picture of the old man, small of stature and wizened in features, and very poor, is still vivid in my mind. Life had left its mark most distinctly upon him. One could see how from early morning to late at night he had from childhood toiled over the hard earth which had drawn him down, until now his back was bent as if still at labour, even when at rest by the fireside. ”

“ 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." ”

“ The old man is frosted with age, and moves stiffly, like a piece of mechanism rather than a living creature, nor is there any expression—neither smile nor interest—upon his absolutely immobile features. ”

“ God was to him the magnificent old man depicted in his dark and extraordinary illustrations of "Job," the old man with the monstrous muscles, the mild stern eyebrows, the long smooth silver hair and beard. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There an old man, whom remorseless death is just calling into eternity, with dull, glassy eyes, white, flowing beard, bald head, sunken mouth, begrimed and deeply-wrinkled face, rises, spectre-like, from his pallet. ”

“ From his youth the vigorous old man had transferred all his life to the world of words—and had found it an enchanted kingdom, something sure and lasting in the quicksands of human existence. From inside the walls of his safe refuge he watched the world outside suffer and despair and cry out and die. ”

“ She may belong, in every sense of the word, to the class from which she springs, but the old man is a king in his way. He has a very noble head, and hair as white as silver. His eyes are dark and soft, his nose aquiline. When he stands up, he looks dignified; when he looks at you, you get a peep at his grand soul. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He knew then that whatever waited for him in the long years to be lived before he became an old man—whether there were other women to meet and other lands to travel—these moments he was living now would walk with him in memory to the very shadow of the grave. ”

“ The old man reasons well, the judgment is clear, the mind active, the conscience alert, the interest in life unabated. It is the memory that plays the old man tricks.
Names and places with which one has been perfectly familiar all his life suddenly, for a few moments, mean nothing. ”

“ 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. ”

“ An old man, gray-haired and wrinkled, lame and suffering. There he sits, in his great loneliness, shut in from all the earth. There he walks, to and fro, within his measured space, apart from all he loves! ”

“ All hats were off as the old man was borne along, a phantom of himself, a symbol of a heroic past, and still a beacon, flickering but alight, to show the way towards the goal which in his youth had seemed impossible to reach. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On, O man! while the sun is high—
On to the certain joys that lie
Yonder where blazeth the noon of day.
Over the hills and far away—
Over the hills and far away!
Over the hills and far away,
An old man lingers at close of day ”

“ I wonder why he jumped, the old man thought. He jumped almost as though to show me how big he was. I know now, anyway, he thought. I wish I could show him what sort of man I am. But then he would see the cramped hand. Let him think I am more man than I am and I will be so. I wish I was the fish, he thought, with everything he has against only my will and my intelligence. ”

“ The spectacle of an old man with his intellect keen, with his experience bitter, with his appetites unsatiated, with the memory of past enjoyment stinging him, and deprived of the physical power to enjoy, is so familiar that we accept it as one of the commonplaces of life. ”

“ From that time, there sprung up in the old man's mind, a solicitude about the child which never slept or left him. There are chords in the human heart--strange, varying strings--which are only struck by accident; which will remain mute and senseless to appeals the most passionate and earnest, and respond at last to the slightest casual touch. ”

“ Who is the old man I see? The old man is a Railroad Builder, and his brow is clouded. Why is his brow clouded? It is clouded because this is Monday and he cannot build any railroad track. Why can he not build railroad track on Monday? Because he is pious and remembers the Sabbath day to keep everybody he can hire wholly—busy. He only builds on Sunday. ”

“ In one, you have an old man reading a headstone,—“Vanitas, vanitatum, omnia vanitas.” It is a sentiment which strikes down to the bottom of his soul, as a voice of warning from heaven, and the voice of memory from the days of his past life. The old man stands propt on his staff, and you cannot misinterpret the thoughts which throng upon him. He is carried back through all his days ”

“ And the old man would brood into the greater past, his voice would grow quiet, and he would gently emphasize his argument by letting one hand, from a fixed wrist, rise, and fall sadly on the table, in a gesture of solemn finality. ”

“ 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? ”

“ The old man draws the steel-bowed spectacles from his face, and watches with a patriarchal air any change that comes over the accommodation man's countenance. "Now, good friend, if I did but know the plot," pursues the old man. ”

“ See yonder slatternly old man in threadbare garments, with pinched features telling of long years of anxiety and privation, and want. He has a weak, starved voice, that sounds as though years of privation have shrunk it as much as his cheeks. ”

“ A poor old man, who can scarcely climb a gate, or lift a chair, and who sees his one delight in this world pining and waning to the grave before him. Yet does he ever moan and groan, and turn his back on his fellow-creatures? ”

“ Every twenty yards or so he must stand still to "admire the view"--that is, to puff and pant.
"What it is," he then exclaims, "to be an old man in youth, through no fault of one's own. How many are healthy, and yet vicious to the core!" ”

“ The old man felt the system of universal nature which he had so long studied and adored, slide from under him, and he stood among the dead, and lifted his voice in curses.—No wonder that the attendant should interpret as phrensy the harrowing maledictions of the grief-struck old man. ”

“ I have wondered sometimes if the old man ever noticed the hush that, ran before him and the clamor that grew up behind, the games that held breath, while he went by, and the children that judged him with wide eyes. ”

“ And across the terrace stones, growing grey in the moonlight, he passed back within.
How should an old man live his days if not in dreaming of his well-spent past? In that, at all events, there is no agitating warmth, only pale winter sunshine. The shell can withstand the gentle beating of the dynamos of memory. The present he should distrust; the future shun. From beneath thick shade he should watch the sunlight creeping at his toes. ”

“ The faint old man shall lean his silver head [Page 147]
To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep,
And dry the moistened curls that overspread
His temples, while his breathing grows more deep:
And they who stand about the sick man's bed,
Shall joy to listen to thy distant sweep,
And softly part his curtains to allow
Thy visit, grateful to his burning brow. ”

“ Asked by him smilingly what it was that made me look at him so perplexed, I asked in my turn:—"How is it, Master, that some of the members of our Society have taken into their heads a notion that you were 'an elderly man,' and that they have even seen you clairvoyantly looking an old man past sixty?" ”

“ To see the old man struck down beneath the pressure of some hidden grief, to mark his wavering and unsettled state, to be agitated at times with a dreadful fear that his mind was wandering, and to trace in his words and looks the dawning of despondent madness ”

“ He does not even [338] see the old man himself,—a more striking memorial of mortality and the vanity of life than all the rest. This is true human life: age, sad and observant of every solemn memento; youth, in the reckless happiness of its own charmed existence. ”

“ I am now an old man.’
“‘Yet these are the hands that sculptured the beautiful Ariadne and the Panther,’ replied Flemming. ‘The soul never grows old.’
“‘Nor does Nature,’ said the old man, pleased with this allusion to his great work, and pointing to the green trees before his window. ”

“ Why in the world, then, does the old man not show himself to us before the doors, nor answer? Has he lost his slippers, or some where in the dark hit his toe against any thing; and then has his ancle become inflamed, being an old man? ”