see how to do it; and she was perpetually turning the coals back over the top-bar. One night a burning mass fell in that way on the skirts of her dress, and was discovered only by the smell of burning woollen. If it had fallen on cotton or silk, she must have been burnt. I see nothing to be done in such cases but to have locked fireguards, and to explain simply that the family could not be easy to leave their charge without that precaution.
Very like this is the persistence of some aged people in going out alone into the streets—crowded streets where crossing is difficult, and where good sight and some agility are necessary to guard against embarrassments and dangers. I have known more than one infirm septuagenarian who would slip out at a back door, or lie in wait for the hall being empty, to get out unobserved; and in a few minutes, a horse was rearing over the head of one, and a porter was knocking another up against the wall; and the wonder was, when either was safe at home again. They came home in a state of vexation from having been plainly told by their rescuers, “You ought not to be out in the streets alone:” “You should be better taken care of;” and the more obviously true this was, the greater was the irritation.
It is not easy,—indeed I know few things that require more resolution than it does,—to mortify this little vanity in persons to whom we have always looked up with deference, and whose will we have been accustomed to obey. To trench on their personal rights, and invade their liberty, seems something monstrous, no doubt, to all parties: yet, in these instances, it must be done. If possible, the pain with which it is done should be covered over with cheerfulness; and, instead of any solemn remonstrance or announcement, the guardianship should be imposed as a matter of course, and treated like the household customs of regular meals and going to bed. I have witnessed every sort of dutiful and beautiful care of the aged; and none with more respect and admiration than that in which the children—themselves elderly—have been the managers, as well as the nurses, of their parents; yet I have never got over the painful kind of surprise of the spectacle,—the violation of all one’s associations of deference with age, and one’s feelings of the sacredness of the liberty and the will of one’s elders.
The more necessary such offences are, the more scrupulous should be the indulgence in every instance which does not involve personal danger. The aged should be allowed to follow their own prejudices, and live according to their own notions, even to their own disadvantage, since opposition would cause them more pain than their own mistakes. If, when short of breath, they like going about the house on their own errands, let them do so, rather than wait upon them against their will. If they oppose themselves to modern sanitary practices, let them go to their graves as their fathers did. About exercise, food, and hours let them suit themselves. About dress, few would wish to interfere. It is painful to see old ladies in gay or youthful dress; and a little tact may soften the absurdity, in many a case; but the opposite tendency is more common, and quite unobjectionable. I remember more than one old gentleman, in my childhood, who wore pigtail and powder, and knee-breeches for everyday wear; and old ladies in ruffles and long gloves, and outside muslin handkerchiefs, and muslin aprons; and their antique appearance inspired unmingled respect, as the Quaker dress always does. If it did not, we should still wish to avoid interference, and to help our old folks to gratify their taste and judgment in dress to the end. So it should be also in regard to their little hoards of relics,—their worm-eaten furniture, their bits of china, their antiquated sermon-books, and their curiosities in the way of old shoes, and gloves, and trinkets. Let all be tenderly used, and allowed to take up room, however inconveniently. It is not for long; and the one great duty to the aged is to save them from fret, and, above all, from the fret of mortification.
I have seen a very self-complacent and sentimental woman do a thing which put me more in mind of King Lear than I could have wished. An aged and infirm relative had lent, as a privilege, some beautiful verses of a close personal interest, to be read, enjoining care of this her only copy. For many days she modestly asked for them back again, till, the self-complacent lady being induced to search, the precious document was found torn by the children; and the only apology offered was a snub about “making such a fuss about a sheet of paper.” If, instead of being a thing of real value like this, it had been a page out of a copybook, it ought to have been respected as prized by one whose smallest wish should be honoured.
A sympathy which is sufficient for these things should naturally be more ready than it usually appears to be, to enter into the immediate prospect of the aged. It is natural for persons on the verge of life to speak sometimes of leaving it: but nobody responds. Few have a word to say on what so closely concerns their charge; they make haste to talk of something else, or go away; or even, as in an instance which I remember, say, “Oh, nonsense; don’t talk so. You are no nearer death than ever you were.” They would not have done so about a voyage to Australia, twenty years before; and the departing one would like some sympathy now, even better than then. The fault lies mainly, no doubt, in the common exaggerated view of the importance of death. The exaggeration still influences the younger nurses, and is detected by the elders as they approach their departure; but the departure is their prospect, and it is a failure of sympathy to shrink from speaking of what the waiting one thinks of with freedom and cheerfulness. One meditative old man whom I knew was self-sufficing in this respect. He had on his table—the table at which he read and wrote daily—a pretty cast of a sleeping child. His friends wondered at his constancy to this cheap bit of art; but one of them soon divined its meaning. When weary, as such very old people are, and longing for rest, it soothed him to see the image of rest. I suspect he might have waited long for any one to minister to his need by speech. Who ever does say to the aged, except as comfort under bereavement, that they have not