with an inscription in similar words, if not the same.  That, like other country pleasures, never wears out.  None is too rich, none too poor, none too young, none too old to enjoy it.] There is a New England story I have heard more to the point, however, than any of Cicero’s.  A young farmer was urged to set out some apple-trees.—­No, said he, they are too long growing, and I don’t want to plant for other people.  The young farmer’s father was spoken to about it, but he, with better reason, alleged that apple-trees were slow and life was fleeting.  At last some one mentioned it to the old grandfather of the young farmer.  He had nothing else to do,—­so he stuck in some trees.  He lived long enough to drink barrels of cider made from the apples that grew on those trees.

As for myself, after visiting a friend lately,—­[Do remember all the time that this is the Professor’s paper.]—­I satisfied myself that I had better concede the fact that—­my contemporaries are not so young as they have been,—­and that,—­awkward as it is,—­science and history agree in telling me that I can claim the immunities and must own the humiliations of the early stage of senility.  Ah! but we have all gone down the hill together.  The dandies of my time have split their waistbands and taken to high-low shoes.  The beauties of my recollections—­where are they?  They have run the gantlet of the years as well as I. First the years pelted them with red roses till their cheeks were all on fire.  By and by they began throwing white roses, and that morning flush passed away.  At last one of the years threw a snow-ball, and after that no year let the poor girls pass without throwing snow-balls.  And then came rougher missiles,—­ice and stones; and from time to time an arrow whistled, and down went one of the poor girls.  So there are but few left; and we don’t call those few girls, but—­

Ah, me!  Here am I groaning just as the old Greek sighed Ai, ai! and the old Roman, Eheu!  I have no doubt we should die of shame and grief at the indignities offered us by age, if it were not that we see so many others as badly or worse off than ourselves.  We always compare ourselves with our contemporaries.

[I was interrupted in my reading just here.  Before I began at the next breakfast, I read them these verses;—­I hope you will like them, and get a useful lesson from them.]

THE LAST BLOSSOM.

Though young no more, we still would dream
Of beauty’s dear deluding wiles;
The leagues of life to graybeards seem
Shorter than boyhood’s lingering miles.

Who knows a woman’s wild caprice? 
It played with Goethe’s silvered hair,
And many a Holy Father’s “niece”
Has softly smoothed the papal chair.

When sixty bids us sigh in vain
To melt the heart of sweet sixteen,
We think upon those ladies twain
Who loved so well the tough old Dean.