sustained, upon the excessive selfishness of those who, in a world of
troubles, and calls to action, and innumerable duties, husband their
strength for the sake of living on. Can it be possible, the argument
ran, for a truly generous heart to continue beating up to the age of a
hundred? Duke Pasquier was not without his defenders, who likened him to
the oak of the forest--a venerable comparison.

The argument was conducted on both sides with spirit and earnestness,
lightened here and there by frisky touches of the polysyllabic playful,
reminding one of the serious pursuit of their fun by truant boys, that
are assured they are out of the eye of their master, and now and then
indulge in an imitation of him. And well might it be supposed that the
Comic idea was asleep, not overlooking them! It resolved at last to
this, that either Duke Pasquier was a scandal on our humanity in clinging
to life so long, or that he honoured it by so sturdy a resistance to the
enemy. As one who has entangled himself in a labyrinth is glad to get
out again at the entrance, the argument ran about to conclude with its
commencement.

Now, imagine a master of the Comic treating this theme, and particularly
the argument on it. Imagine an Aristophanic comedy of THE CENTENARIAN,
with choric praises of heroical early death, and the same of a stubborn
vitality, and the poet laughing at the chorus; and the grand question for
contention in dialogue, as to the exact age when a man should die, to the
identical minute, that he may preserve the respect of his fellows,
followed by a systematic attempt to make an accurate measurement in
parallel lines, with a tough rope-yarn by one party, and a string of
yawns by the other, of the veteran's power of enduring life, and our
capacity for enduring _him_, with tremendous pulling on both sides.