narrowness of means, in his declining years, can have come upon him
by surprise. His life has all been of a piece. His subdued and
nerveless boyhood prefigured his abortive prime, which likewise
contained within itself the prophecy and image of his lean and
torpid age. He was perhaps a mechanic, who never came to be a
master in his craft, or a petty tradesman, rubbing onward between
passably to do and poverty. Possibly he may look back to some
brilliant epoch of his career when there were a hundred or two of
dollars to his credit in the Savings Bank. Such must have been the
extent of his better fortune,--his little measure of this world's
triumphs,--all that he has known of success. A meek, downcast,
humble, uncomplaining creature, he probably has never felt himself
entitled to more than so much of the gifts of Providence. Is it not
still something that he has never held out his hand for charity, nor
has yet been driven to that sad home and household of Earth's
forlorn and broken-spirited children, the almshouse? He cherishes
no quarrel, therefore, with his destiny, nor with the Author of it.
All is as it should be.

If, indeed, he have been bereaved of a son, a bold, energetic,
vigorous young man, on whom the father's feeble nature leaned as on
a staff of strength, in that case he may have felt a bitterness that
could not otherwise have been generated in his heart. But methinks
the joy of possessing such a son and the agony of losing him would
have developed the old man's moral and intellectual nature to a much
greater degree than we now find it. Intense grief appears to be as
much out of keeping with his life as fervid happiness.

To confess the truth, it is not the easiest matter in the world to
define and individualize a character like this which we are now