Non-Fiction > Books > London, 1887 - Virginibus Puerisque, and other papers

Crabbed Age and Yottth 8 5
like characters in ancient and rather fabulous
annals. Our offspring would no more think
of copying their behaviour, let us hope, than
of doffing their clothes and painting them-
selves blue in consequence of certain admis-
sions in the first chapter of their school history
of England.
Discredited as they are in practice, the
cowardly proverbs hold their own in theory ;
and it is another instance of the same spirit,
that the opinions of old men about life have
been accepted as final. All sorts of allow-
ances are made for the illusions of youth ;
and none, or almost none, for the disenchant-
ments of age. It is held to be a good taunt,
and somehow or other to clinch the question
logically, when an old gentleman waggles
his head and says : " Ah, so I thought when
I was your age." It is not thought an
answer at all, if the young man retorts :
" My venerable sir, so I shall most probably
think when I am yours." And yet the one
is as good as the other : pass for pass, tit
for tat, a Roland for an Oliver.