LIST OF PLATES. Sybil. (Frontispiece.) Painted by JONES. Engraved by Vignette. (Title.) Painted by WARREN. Engraved by PELTON. 172 The Sisters. (Plate 1.) Painted by EDDIS. Engraved by H. 222 222 The Sisters. (Plate 2.) Painted by EDDIS. Engraved by 238 Feeding the Kittens. Painted by MEYERHEIM. Engraved by H. W. SMITH, 271 THE ROSE OF SHARON. GROWING OLD. BY HORACE GREELEY. WE who have lately ceased to be young are apt to be startled by our first perceptions that we are indeed growing old. The eye may have been dimmed, and its range of vision contracted, but we did not mind that it was a result of excessive study or protracted watching-perhaps of accident, or illness; but now the locks, once so luxuriant and ample, have wasted hair by hair until they seem lank and straggling; the brow, so smooth and fair till recently, grows rigid and furrowy; and the features have a sharpness and immobility we had not hitherto known. Here a casualty has made its mark; there a great sorrow has set its seal; there a sin has left its stain; each perhaps scarcely noticeable by itself, but altogether making a great change in the expression of the countenance, and foreshadowing still greater changes to follow. Old we as yet are not, but it is none the less obvious that we are surely and steadily becoming so. Yes, we are all growing old. The youth, in the first flush of his conscious elasticity and energy; the maiden, in her tenderest beauty and bloom; the strong man, in his fulness of vigor and endurance; the matron, in her chastened grace, and sobered loveliness, all are ripening for decay, dissolution, and the tomb. Some will mature earlier, some later; many will be struck down in their youth or their prime; but, sooner or later, one common fate awaits us, and our common mother will receive the ashes of us all to her bosom. We know this at arms' length, even in childhood; but we realize and take it to heart from the first hour wherein we perceive that we are growing old. Well; the admonition wears a certain aspect of austerity or sharpness, but bears within a core of sweetness as well. The human frame is less lithe and vigorous, the human face less bland and beauteous in age than in youth; yet Age has its own graces wherever they have not been blasted by the mildews of a disordered prime. Admirable, in all its stages, is the crown of God's earthly workmanship, when uncorrupted by evil, untarnished by sin and perhaps never more truly so, than when silvered locks and sunken cheeks proclaim the evening repose of the passions which had often disturbed and ; |