"I am possessed, also, with the thought that I have never yet discovered
the real secret of my powers; that there has been a mighty treasure
within my reach, a mine of gold beneath my feet, worthless because I
have never known how to seek for it; and for want of perhaps one
fortunate idea, I am to die

'Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.'

"Once, amid the troubled and tumultuous enjoyment of my life, there was
a dreamy thought that haunted me, the terrible necessity imposed on
mortals to grow old, or die. I could not bear the idea of losing one
youthful grace. True, I saw other men, who had once been young and now
were old, enduring their age with equanimity, because each year
reconciled them to its own added weight. But for myself, I felt that
age would be not less miserable, creeping upon me slowly, than if it
fell at once. I sometimes looked in the glass, and endeavored to fancy
my cheeks yellow and interlaced with furrows, my forehead wrinkled
deeply across, the top of my head bald and polished, my eyebrows and
side-locks iron gray, and a grisly beard sprouting on my chin.
Shuddering at the picture, I changed it for the dead face of a young
mail, with dark locks clustering heavily round its pale beauty, which
would decay, indeed, but not with years, nor in the sight of men. The
latter visage shocked me least.

"Such a repugnance to the hard conditions of long life is common to all
sensitive and thoughtful men, who minister to the luxury, the
refinements, the gayety and lightsomeness, to anything, in short, but
the real necessities of their fellow-creatures. He who has a part in
the serious business of life, though it be only as a shoemaker, feels