*"Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers,
Sits by the raked-up ashes of the past
And spreads its thin hands above the glowing embers
That warm its shivering life-blood till the last."
Those lines troubled me a great deal when I first read them. I was very
young then, and I thought that everything I read in print was the truth.
I didn't like it a little bit that the chief end of my life and the sole
amusement of my old age should be remembering.
Already there were some things in my memory that were not
particularly pleasant to think about. I have since learned that few
people have such happy and successful lives that they would wish
to spend years just remembering.
One thing is certain, this melancholy old age will not come upon those
who refuse to spend their time indulging in such dreams of the past.
Men and women may keep their life's blood warm by healthy exercise
as long as they keep journeying on instead of sitting by the way trying
to warm themselves over the ashes of remembrance.
Neither is it a good plan for people to keep telling themselves they
are growing old. There is such a thing as a law of mental suggestion
that makes the continual affirmation of a thing work toward its
becoming an accomplished fact.
Why keep suggesting old age until we take on its characteristics
as a matter of course? There are things much more interesting to do
than keeping tally of the years and watching for infirmities.
I know a woman who, when she saw her first gray hair, began to
bewail the fact that she was growing old, and began to change her ways
to suit her ideas of old age. She couldn't "wear bright colors any more";
she was "too old". She must be more quiet now: "It was not becoming
in an old person to be so merry." She had not "been feeling well lately,"
but she supposed she was "as well as could be expected of a
person growing old" and so on and so on.
I never lost the feeling that the years were passing swiftly and that
old age was lying in wait for the youngest of us when in her company.
Of course, no one can really welcome the first gray hair or look upon
the first wrinkles as beautiful, but even those things need not affect
our happiness. There is no reason why we should not be merry
as we grow older. If we learn to look on the bright side while
we are young, those wrinkles at the corners of the eyes
will be "laughing wrinkles" instead of "crow's feet".
There is nothing in the passing of the years by itself to cause one
to become melancholy. If they have been good years, then the more
of them the better. If they have been bad years, be glad they are
passed and expect the coming ones to be more to your liking.
Perhaps, after all, the poet whose verse I have quoted meant it as a
warning that if we did not wish to come to that unlovely old age, we
must keep striving for ourselves and others. There is no age limit set
by the great poet when he wrote:
*"Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,
As the swift seasons roll!"
It certainly a pleasanter, more worthwhile occupation to keep on
building than to be raking up the ashes of dead fires.
"Keep Journeying On"
(March 1918)
Laura Ingalls Wilder
(1867-1957)
Prolific American writer
and original pioneer girl
Author of the "Little House" series.
Essay taken from the book,
"Little House In The Ozarks"
A Laura Ingalls Wilder Sampler
The Rediscovered Writings
By Laura Ingalls Wilder
Edited by Stephen W. Hines
Copyright 1991
Guideposts Edition
*Quotes above taken from, "The Iron Gate" and "The Chambered Nautilus"
by Oliver Wendell Holmes
