To have done is to hang out of fashion, like
a rusty mail in monumental mockery..."
Troilus and Cressida. Act 111. Sc 111
"To have done is to hang out of fashion" indeed - but it signifies even more than just being unfashionable; it is a warning sign of impending decline and dissolution.
For too much dwelling on the past betokens the onset of decay within the living being.
Your young people don't talk of bygone days; they are too busy dealing with the present and the future.
But when a person's mind begins to dwell on the so-called "happy" days gone by, we feel we are in the presence of faded lavender-scented memories, and we turn away with impatience, for who wants to eat yesterday's leftovers? Who wants to listen to people who have ceased participating in life and, having withdrawn, have nothing to feed on except the stale remnants of feasts long past - people, in effect, who have nailed up a notice-board saying: "This road is now closed to all traffic"?
But although our hearts may empathise, our sympathy is misplaced.
We would be doing greater good by far were we to remind them of Frederick the Great's scornful remark to someone who suggested that they should have a rest from their labours: "Rest! Rest!" he snorted, "we have all eternity to rest in!"
After all, we're only here for the twinkling of an eye. Couldn't we, as Jesus said to some of his disciples, watch for just one hour?
When we say to the elderly: "You must rest" we are far from doing them a kindness. The very reverse is true, in fact.
For is it not better, if still in health, that we wear ourselves out in use than allow ourselves to simply rot away in idleness. Is it not better to make use of ones hard-earned knowledge and the experience of a life-time, instead of just casting it away as so-much unwanted, useless junk?
Why should medical science seek to prolong the life if the added years are merely used to doze comatosely in an armchair? As the proverb has it: "A shut book is but a useless block". As Shakespeare noted: "What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time, be but to sleep and feed? A beast - no more".
What if the body be frail and sickly.
It is the mind and spirit that vitalises - not the blood.
Life may be, as Samuel Butler humourously observed, one long process of getting tired, but as the Vikings held - the weaker the body becomes, the stronger must the will become. Shakespeare concurred:
"...for when the mind is quicken'd, out of doubt,
The organs, though defunct and dead before,
Break up their drowsy grave, and newly move
With casted slough and fresh legerity" (Henry V).
The moment we mentally cease to grow; the moment we start closing doors and drawing curtains, and turning our backs on the outside world because "we can't be bothered anymore" or "we are too tired" that is the moment that marks the start of our decline and ultimate fall and the moment when we start becoming like suits of armour slowly rusting in monumental repose!
We are, to all intents and purposes, "closed for all future business".
But Life knows but one law - that of growth and competition. As Byron noted: "It is our nature to advance or die".
Dickens after once visiting a certain hospice wrote afterwards: "Among the aged inmates there was great patience, great reliance on the books under the pillow, great faith in God. From some of the windows the great river could be seen with all its teeming life and movement; the day was bright and lovely, but I came upon no one who was looking out".
What a chilling observation - "No one was looking out".
Is it not preferable to try and emulate the great Ulysses who, by courtesy of Tennyson, resolved to sail beyond the sunset and though:
"We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are -
One equal temper of heroic hearts
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield".
As Amy Scheffler tartly said: "Life should be a constant daily confrontation with the world. Everyone must expect troubles. We must not loose heart. To struggle, and again and again renew the conflict - that is life's inheritance".
Let us, therefore, be up and doing, as noble Longfellow bids us, if we would stay young - and happy too - for no-one can be truly happy for long if he be idle. "The town is beseeched", sings Shakespeare, "and the trumpet calls us to the breach, and we talk, and by Chrish, do nothing; 'tis shame for us all; 'tis shame to stand still; and there is throats to be cut, and works to be done; and ish nothing done, so Chrish save me, la!"
La, indeed!
a rusty mail in monumental mockery..."
Troilus and Cressida. Act 111. Sc 111
"To have done is to hang out of fashion" indeed - but it signifies even more than just being unfashionable; it is a warning sign of impending decline and dissolution.
For too much dwelling on the past betokens the onset of decay within the living being.
Your young people don't talk of bygone days; they are too busy dealing with the present and the future.
But when a person's mind begins to dwell on the so-called "happy" days gone by, we feel we are in the presence of faded lavender-scented memories, and we turn away with impatience, for who wants to eat yesterday's leftovers? Who wants to listen to people who have ceased participating in life and, having withdrawn, have nothing to feed on except the stale remnants of feasts long past - people, in effect, who have nailed up a notice-board saying: "This road is now closed to all traffic"?
But although our hearts may empathise, our sympathy is misplaced.
We would be doing greater good by far were we to remind them of Frederick the Great's scornful remark to someone who suggested that they should have a rest from their labours: "Rest! Rest!" he snorted, "we have all eternity to rest in!"
After all, we're only here for the twinkling of an eye. Couldn't we, as Jesus said to some of his disciples, watch for just one hour?
When we say to the elderly: "You must rest" we are far from doing them a kindness. The very reverse is true, in fact.
For is it not better, if still in health, that we wear ourselves out in use than allow ourselves to simply rot away in idleness. Is it not better to make use of ones hard-earned knowledge and the experience of a life-time, instead of just casting it away as so-much unwanted, useless junk?
Why should medical science seek to prolong the life if the added years are merely used to doze comatosely in an armchair? As the proverb has it: "A shut book is but a useless block". As Shakespeare noted: "What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time, be but to sleep and feed? A beast - no more".
What if the body be frail and sickly.
It is the mind and spirit that vitalises - not the blood.
Life may be, as Samuel Butler humourously observed, one long process of getting tired, but as the Vikings held - the weaker the body becomes, the stronger must the will become. Shakespeare concurred:
"...for when the mind is quicken'd, out of doubt,
The organs, though defunct and dead before,
Break up their drowsy grave, and newly move
With casted slough and fresh legerity" (Henry V).
The moment we mentally cease to grow; the moment we start closing doors and drawing curtains, and turning our backs on the outside world because "we can't be bothered anymore" or "we are too tired" that is the moment that marks the start of our decline and ultimate fall and the moment when we start becoming like suits of armour slowly rusting in monumental repose!
We are, to all intents and purposes, "closed for all future business".
But Life knows but one law - that of growth and competition. As Byron noted: "It is our nature to advance or die".
Dickens after once visiting a certain hospice wrote afterwards: "Among the aged inmates there was great patience, great reliance on the books under the pillow, great faith in God. From some of the windows the great river could be seen with all its teeming life and movement; the day was bright and lovely, but I came upon no one who was looking out".
What a chilling observation - "No one was looking out".
Is it not preferable to try and emulate the great Ulysses who, by courtesy of Tennyson, resolved to sail beyond the sunset and though:
"We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are -
One equal temper of heroic hearts
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield".
As Amy Scheffler tartly said: "Life should be a constant daily confrontation with the world. Everyone must expect troubles. We must not loose heart. To struggle, and again and again renew the conflict - that is life's inheritance".
Let us, therefore, be up and doing, as noble Longfellow bids us, if we would stay young - and happy too - for no-one can be truly happy for long if he be idle. "The town is beseeched", sings Shakespeare, "and the trumpet calls us to the breach, and we talk, and by Chrish, do nothing; 'tis shame for us all; 'tis shame to stand still; and there is throats to be cut, and works to be done; and ish nothing done, so Chrish save me, la!"
La, indeed!
