Of these causes let us see, if you please, how great and
how reasonable each of them is."
To be released from the absorbing affairs of life, to feel that one has
earned a claim to leisure and repose, is surely in itself no evil.
To the second complaint against old age, I have already referred in
speaking of Health.
The third is that it has no passions. "O noble privilege of age! if indeed
it takes from us that which is in youth our greatest defect." But the
higher feelings of our nature are not necessarily weakened; or rather,
they may become all the brighter, being purified from the grosser elements
of our lower nature.
Then, indeed, it might be said that "Man is the sun of the world; more
than the real sun. The fire of his wonderful heart is the only light and
heat worth gauge or measure." [2]
"Single," says Manu, "is each man born into the world; single he dies;
single he receives the rewards of his good deeds; and single the
punishment of his sins. When he dies his body lies like a fallen tree upon
the earth, but his virtue accompanies his soul.
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