I WOULD not care to live, my dears, much more than seven hundred years,
if I should last that long; for I would tire of things in time, and life
at last would seem a crime, and I a public wrong. Old Gaffer Goodworth,
whom you know, was born a hundred years ago, and states the fact with
mirth; he’s rather proud that he has hung around so long while old and
young were falling off the earth. But when his boastful fit is gone, a
sadness comes his face upon, that speaks of utter woe; he sits and
broods and dreams again of vanished days, of long dead men, his friends
of long ago. There is no loneliness so dread as that of one who mourns
his dead in white and wintry age, who, when the lights extinguished are,
the other players scattered far, still lingers on the stage. There is no
solitude so deep as that of him whose friends, asleep, shall visit him
no more; shall never ask, “How do you stack,” or slap him gaily on the
back, as in the days of yore. I do not wish to draw my breath until the
papers say that Death has passed me up for keeps; when I am tired I want
to die and in my cosy casket lie as one who calmly sleeps. When I am
tired of dross and gold, when I am tired of heat and cold, and happiness
has waned, I want to show the neighbor folk how gracefully a man can
croak when he’s correctly trained.
[Illustration]
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