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Have you ever watched a man going down? It is an interesting study,
and a unique one, for the reason that no other animal has language by
which to express the various stages at which he arrives before dropping
out of the Procession of Life. Nor has any animal so many contrivances
with which to dodge and play at hide and seek with Death. The earthly
affection which abides in man, seems to overmaster all the other
emotions--faith, hope, everything,--and he who firmly believes in a
future existence is found as frantic in his efforts to delay its coming,
as the veriest agnostic. Then faith seems to be a theological treasure
of this earth, rather than a treasure of the future. The man with no
tie to bind his soul to this planet is as reluctant to leave it as he
who has the strongest ties of friendship, love and fatherhood. All
mankind seem to have that dread of it which their children have of
being put in a dark closet. But I am not going to investigate the
mysterious dread of death, or the even more mysterious attachment to
life. I am merely recalling to my memory men whom I have seen stagger
awhile and then fall out of the line of life. There is no more pathetic
sight to me, than a man when he first finds that he is failing. Like
a child, he cannot understand it. This strange feeling that he has
never had before; that pain that must come from this or that--they are
all so new to him. He cannot realize that he is failing, and least of
all can he realize the dread truth that it is time for him to fail.
To a man's own mind he is always at that mythical stage, his "prime,"
as long as health lasts. It is piteous to hear his excuses for his
failing body--it was this imprudence, it was that cold, it was too
much or too little exercise--he cannot understand that it is the herald
of the Messenger, and that a little way off through the mist he might