Old letters."

But a summons came at last, not to be postponed even by him. One
day he delivered his mail as usual, with no undue precipitation;
on the next, the blameless soul was himself taken and forwarded
on some celestial route.

Irreparable would have seemed his loss, did there not still
linger among us certain types of human antiquity that might seem
to disprove the fabled youth of America. One veteran I daily
meet, of uncertain age, perhaps, but with at least that air of
brevet antiquity which long years of unruffled indolence can
give. He looks as if he had spent at least half a lifetime on the
sunny slope of some beach, and the other half in leaning upon his
elbows at the window of some sailor boarding-house. He is hale
and broad, with a head sunk between two strong shoulders; his
beard falls like snow upon his breast, longer and longer each
year, while his slumberous thoughts seem to move slowly enough to
watch it as it grows. I always fancy that these meditations have
drifted far astern of the times, but are following after, in
patient hopelessness, as a dog swims behind a boat. What knows he
of the President's Message? He has just overtaken some remarkable
catch of mackerel in the year thirty-eight. His hands lie buried
fathom-deep in his pockets, as if part of his brain lay there to
be rummaged; and he sucks at his old pipe as if his head, like
other venerable hulks, must be smoked out at intervals. His walk
is that of a sloth, one foot dragging heavily behind the other. I
meet him as I go to the post-office, and on returning, twenty
minutes later, I pass him again, a little farther advanced. All
the children accost him, and I have seen him stop--no great