AS a mortal man grows older he has pains in hoof or shoulder, by a
thousand aches and wrenches all his weary frame is torn; he has headache
and hay fever till he is a stout believer in the theory of the poet that
the race was made to mourn. He has gout or rheumatism and he’s prone to
pessimism, and he takes a thousand balsams, and the bottles strew the
yard; he has grip and influenzy till his soul is in a frenzy, and he
longs to end the journey, for this life is beastly hard. And his
system’s revolution is Dame Nature’s retribution for the folly of his
conduct in the days of long ago; in his anguish nearly fainting he is
paying for the painting, for the wassail and the ruffling that his
evenings used to know. We may dance and have our inning in our manhood’s
bright beginning, but we all must pay the fiddler, pay him soon or pay
him late, and a million men are paying for the dancing and the playing,
who are charging up their troubles to misfortune or to fate.
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