to-day. And with advancing years we find that the old subjects that
we spent hours of mirth over, a life-time ago, are not amusing to-day,
if indeed our defective memories can recall them. Ah! how little it
took to furnish youth with mirth, that common standing ground upon
which all so easily form acquaintance and friendship. I trust I may
be forgiven, seeing that I meant well, but I declare to you that I
have practiced outrageous deceit in affecting to remember incidents
that some of these old boys recall, and in trying to be agreeable by
so doing. But doubtless you have also. Perhaps we all have. After all
I take it that separation, like time, tries everything--love,
friendship, even acquaintance, and those of the three which survive
the test are like the ruins of ancient cities, of great value as
curiosities, but worth little for aught else. Mrs. Boyzy remarks that
this is a heartless view of it. But I silence that estimable woman by
the observation that philosophers do not take the heart into account;
the heart is the field of young lovers, physicians' fees and patent
medicines. This observation which she does not understand, and, I may
admit to you I am not so clear about myself, convinces her that I am
not only a philosopher, but a profound one. Ah! to a man of profound
observation, how many better ways of securing the respect of the female
sex there are than the primitive one of clubbing them.




OBSERVATIONS OF A RETIRED VETERAN XI


I do not reverence ministers of the gospel simply because they hold
that office, any more than I esteem a man as a gentleman simply because