Life moves along so smoothly with
most of us that there seems to be very little difference between one birthday
and another but to this rule there is one brilliant and outstanding exception. There
is one birthday on which a man should certainly take a holiday, go for a quiet
stroll, and indulge in a little serious stock-taking. That birthday is, of
course, the fortieth. A man’s fortieth birthday is one of the really great days
in his life’s little story; and he must make the most of it. Youth, of course, often sins, and
sins grievously; but youth recovers itself, and frequently emerges chastened
and ennobled by the bitter experience; but I can recall no instance of a man
who fell in the forties and who ever really recovered himself. Young people write poetry and get
sentimental: so do old people. But people in the forties--never! A man of forty
would as soon be suspected of picking his neighbour’s pocket as of writing
poetry. He would rather be seen walking down the street without collar or
necktie than be seen shedding tears. Ask a company of young people to select
some of their favourite hymns or songs. They will at once call for hymns about
heaven or songs about love. So will old people. But you will never persuade
middle-aged people to sing such songs. They are in the practical or prosy stage
of life. The romance of youth has worn off; the romance of age has not arrived.
They are between the poetry of the dawn and the poetry of the twilight. And
midway between the poetry of the dawn and the poetry of the twilight comes the
panting perspiration of noonday. The mere change from the poetry
of youth to the prose of middle life need not in itself alarm us. Some of the
finest classics in our literature are penned in prose. But within this minor
peril lies the germ of a major peril. The trouble is that prosiness may develop
into pessimism. And when prosiness curdles into pessimism the case of the
patient is very grave. The fact is that at forty a
man must drop something. He has been all his life accumulating until he has
become really overloaded. He has maintained his interest in all the things that
occupied his attention in youth; and, all the way along the road, fresh claims
have been made upon him. His position in the world is a much more responsible
one, and makes a greater drain upon his thought and energy. He has married,
too, and children have come into his home. There has been struggle and sickness
and anxiety. Interests have multiplied, and life has increased in seriousness.
But, increasing in seriousness, it must not be allowed to increase in
sordidness. A man’s life is like a garden. There is a limit to the things that
it will grow. You cannot pack plants in a garden as you pack sardines in a tin.
That is why the farmer thins out the turnips; that is why the orchardist prunes
his trees; and that is why the husbandman pinches the grapebuds off the
trailing vines. Life has to be similarly treated. At forty a man realizes that
his garden is getting overcrowded. It contains all the flowers that he planted
in his sentimental youth and all the vegetables that he set there in his
prosaic manhood. It is too much. There must be a thinning out. And, unless he
is very, very careful, he will find that the thinning-out process will
automatically consist of the sacrifice of all the pansies and the retention of
all the potatoes. Potatoes are excellent things, and the garden becomes distinctly wealthier when, in the twenties and thirties, a man begins to moderate his passion for pansies, and to plant a few potatoes. But a time comes when he must make a stand on behalf of the pansies, or he will have no soul for anything beyond potatoes. Round his potato beds let him jealously retain a border of his finest pansies; and, depend upon it, when he gets into the fifties and the sixties he will be glad that, all through life, he remained true to the first fondnesses of youth. |
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