TIME.

"I saw the leaves gliding down a brook;

Swift the brook ran, and bright the sun burned:

The sere and the verdant, the same course they took--

And sped gayly and fast--but they never returned.

And I thought how the years of a man pass away--

Threescore and ten--and then where are they?"

"Threescore years and ten," thought I to myself, as I walked, one rainy

morning, as a sailor walks the quarter-deck, up and down a short alcove,

extending before the windows of a modern house. It was one of those days

in June, in which our summer-hopes take umbrage at what we call

unseasonable weather, though no season was ever known to pass without

them. Unlike the rapid and delightful showers of warmer days, suddenly

succeeding to the sunshine, when the parched vegetables and arid earth

seize with avidity, and imbibe the moisture ere it becomes unpleasant to

our feelings, there had fallen a drizzling rain throughout the night;

the saturated soil returned to the atmosphere the humidity it could no

longer absorb; and there it hung, in chilling thickness, between rain

and fog. The birds did not sing, and the flowers did not open, for the

cold drop was on their cheek, and no sunbeam was there to expand them.

Nature itself wore the garb of sadness, and man's too dependent spirits

were ready to assume it--those, at least, that were not so happy as to

find means of forgetting it. Such was the case with my unfortunate self.

I had descended to the breakfast-room, at the usual hour, but no one

appeared; I looked for a book, but found none but an almanac. The books

were kept in the library--beyond all dispute their proper place, had I

not been in a humor to think otherwise. The house was too hot, and the

external air was too cold; and I was fain to betake myself to that last

resort of the absolutely idle--a mechanical movement of the body up and

down a given space. And, from the alcove where I walked, I heard the

ticking of the timepiece; and, as I passed the window, I saw the hands

advance; every time I had returned, they had gone a little farther.

"Threescore years and ten," said I to myself; "and a third or fourth of

it is nature's claim for indispensable repose--and many a day consumed

on the bed of sickness--and many a year by the infirmities of age--and

some part of all necessarily sacrificed to the recruiting of the health

by exercise. And what do we with the rest?" Nothing answered me but the

ticking of the clock, of which the hands were traversing between eight

and nine. They had nearly met, at the appointed hour, when the party

began to assemble within; and each one commenced, for aught I could

discover, the functions of the day, for neither their appearance nor

their remarks gave any intimation that they had been previously

employed. One, indeed, declared the weather made her so idle she had

scarcely found strength to dress herself; another confessed he had

passed an additional hour in bed, because the day promised him so little

to do up. One by one, as they dropped in, the seats at the

breakfast-table were filled; and, as a single newspaper was all the

apparent means of mental occupation, I anticipated some interesting

conversation.

I waited and I watched. One ran the point of his fork into the

table-cloth; another balanced her spoon on the tea-cup; a third told

backwards and forwards the rings on her fingers, as duly as a friar

tells his beads. As such actions sometimes are the symptoms of mental

occupation, I began to anticipate the brilliant results of so much

thinking. I cried, hem! in hopes to rouse them to expression--and not

quite unsuccessfully: for one remarked, it was a wretched day; another

wished it was fine; and a third hoped it shortly would be so. Meantime,

the index of the clock went round; it was gaining close upon ten before

all had withdrawn from the table. My eye followed one to the

window-place; where, with her back to the wall, and her eyes fixed

without, she passed a full half hour in gazing at the prospect without,

or wishing, perhaps, the mist did not prevent her seeing it. A very

young lady was so busy in pulling the dead leaves from a geranium, and

crumbling them in her fingers, I could not doubt but some important

purpose was in the task. A third resumed the newspaper he had read for a

whole hour before, and betook himself, at last, to the advertisements. A

fourth repaired to the alcove, gathered some flowers, picked them to

pieces, threw them away again, and returned. "Cease thy prating, thou

never-resting time-piece!" said I to myself, "for no one heeds thy tale.

What is it to us that each one of thy tickings cuts a link from our

brief chain of life? Time is the gift of Heaven, but man has no use for

it!"

I had scarcely thought out the melancholy reflection, when a young lady

entered with an elegant work-box, red without and blue within, and

filled with manifold conveniences for the pursuance of her art. Glad was

I most truly at the sight. By the use of the needle, the naked may be

clothed; ingenuity may economize her means, and have more to spare for

those who need it; invention may multiply the ways of honest

subsistence, and direct the ignorant to the use of them. Most glad was

I, therefore, that the signal of industry drew more than one wanderer to

the same pursuit, though not till much time had been consumed in going

in and out, and up and down, in search of the materials. All were found

at last; the party worked, and I, as usual, listened. "I think this

trimming," said one, "will repay me for my trouble, though it has cost

me three months' work already, and it will be three months more before

it is finished." "Indeed!" rejoined her friend; "I wish I were half as

industrious; but I have been working six weeks at this handkerchief, and

have not had time to finish it: now the fashion is passed, and I shall

not go on." "How beautifully you are weaving that necklace! Is it not

very tedious?" "Yes, almost endless; but I delight in the work,

otherwise I should not do it, for the beads cost almost as much as I

could buy it for." "I should like to begin one this morning," interposed

a fourth, "but the milliner has sent home my bonnet so ill-trimmed, it

will take me all the day to alter it: the bow is on the wrong side, and

the trimming on the edge is too broad. It is very tiresome to spend all

one's life in altering things we pay so much for." "I wish," said a

little girl at the end of the table, "that I might work some trimmings

for my frock, but I am obliged to do this plain work first. The poor

lame girl in the village, who is almost starving, would do it for me for

a shilling, but I must save my allowance this week to buy a French

trinket I have taken a fancy to." "Poor thing! she is much to be

pitied," said the lady of the trimming; "if I had time, I would make her

some clothes."

And so they worked, and so they talked, till I and the time-piece had

counted many an hour which they took no account of, when one of them

yawned, and said, "How tedious are these wet days; it is really

impossible to spin out one's time without a walk." "I am surprised you

find it so," rejoined the lady of the beads; "I can rarely take time

for walking, though keeping the house makes me miserably languid."

And so the morning passed. It was nearly two o'clock, and the company

dispersed to their apartments. I pretend not to know what they did

there; but each one returned between three and four in an altered dress.

And then half an hour elapsed, in which, as I understood from their

impatience, they were waiting for dinner; each in turn complaining of

the waste of time occasioned by its delay, and the little use it would

be to go about any thing when it was so near. And as soon as dinner was

over, they began to wait for tea with exactly the same complainings. And

the tea came, and, cheered by the vivifying draught, one did repair to

the instrument, and began a tune; one did take up a pencil, and prepare

to draw; and one almost opened a book. But, alas! the shades of night

were growing fast:--ten minutes had scarcely elapsed, before each one

resigned her occupation, with a murmur at the darkness of the weather;

and, though some persons suggested that there were such things as lamps

and candles, it was agreed to be a pity to have lights so early in the

midst of summer, and so another half hour escaped.

The lights, when they came, would have failed to relumine an expectation

in my bosom, had not their beams disclosed the forms of various books,

which one and another had brought in for the evening's amusement. Again

I watched and again I listened. "I wish I had something to do, mamma,"

said the little girl. "Why do you not take a book, and read?" rejoined

her mother. "My books are all up stairs," she replied; "and it is so

near bedtime, it is not worth while to bring them down." "This is the

best novel I ever read," said a lady, somewhat older, turning the leaves

over so very fast, that those who are not used to this manner of

reading, might suppose she found nothing in it worthy of attention. "I

dare say it is," said another, whose eyes had been fixed for half an

hour on the same page of Wordsworth's Poems; "but I have no time to read

novels." "I wish I had time to read any thing," said a third, whom I had

observed already to have been perusing attentively the title-page of

every book on the table, publisher's name, date, and all; while a fourth

was too intensely engaged in studying the blue cover of a magazine, to

make any remark whatever.

And now I was much amused to perceive with what frequency eyes were

turned upon the dial-plate, through all the day so little regarded.

Watches were drawn out, compared, and pronounced too slow. With some

difficulty, one was found that had outrun its fellows, and, determined

to be right, gave permission to the company to disperse, little more

than twelve hours from the time of their assembling, to recover, as I

supposed, during the other twelve, dressing and undressing included, the

effect of their mental and bodily exertions.

"So!" I exclaimed, as soon as I found myself alone, "twelve times round

yonder dial-plate those little hands have stolen, and twelve times more

they may now go round unheeded. They who are gone to rest, have a day

less to live, and record has been made in heaven of that day's use. Will

He who gave, ask no reckoning for his gifts? The time, the thoughts, the

talents; the improvement we might have made, and made not; the good we

might have done, and did not; the health, and strength, and intellect,

that may not be our's to-morrow, and have not been used to-day; will not

conscience whisper of it ere they sleep to-night? The days of man were

shortened upon earth by reason of the wickedness the Creator saw.

Threescore years and ten are now his portion, and often not half the

number. They pause not; they loiter not: the hours strike on, and they

may even go, for it seems they are all too much."

The young, with minds as yet unstored, full of error, full of ignorance

in all that it behooves them most to know, unfit alike as yet for earth

or heaven--the old, whose sum of life is almost told, and but a brief

space remaining to repair their mistakes and redeem the time they have

lost--the simple and ungifted, who, having from nature but little, need

the more assiduity to fulfill their measure of usefulness, and make that

little do the most it may--the clever and highly talented, who have an

almost appalling account to render for the much received--they all have

time to waste. But let them remember, time is not their own; not a

moment of it; but is the grant of Heaven; and Heaven gives nothing

without a purpose and an end. Every hour that is wasted, fails of that

purpose; and in so far as it is wasted or ill-spent, the gift of Heaven

is misused, and the misuse is to be answered for. Methinks I would be

allowed to whisper nightly in the ears of my young friends as they lie

down to rest, "How many minutes have you lost to-day, that might have

been employed in your own improvement, in our Maker's service, or for

your fellow-creature's good?"