barren.  Well, there is nothing for all this but patience and time.  Time, yes, that is the finder, the unweariable explorer, not subject to casualties, omniscient at last.  The day comes when the hidden author of our story is found; when the brave speech returns straight to the hero who said it; when the admirable verse finds the poet to whom it belongs; and best of all, when the lonely thought, which seemed so wise, yet half-wise, half-thought, because it cast no light abroad, is suddenly matched in our mind by its twin, by its sequence, or next related analogy, which gives it instantly radiating power, and justifies the superstitious instinct with which we had hoarded it.  We remember our old Greek Professor at Cambridge, an ancient bachelor, amid his folios, possessed by this hope of completing a task, with nothing to break his leisure after the three hours of his daily classes, yet ever restlessly stroking his leg, and assuring himself “he should retire from the University and read the authors.”  In Goethe’s Romance, Makaria, the central figure for wisdom and influence, pleases herself with withdrawing into solitude to astronomy and epistolary correspondence.  Goethe himself carried this completion of studies to the highest point.  Many of his works hung on the easel from youth to age, and received a stroke in every month or year of his life.  A literary astrologer, he never applied himself to any task but at the happy moment when all the stars consented.  Bentley thought himself likely to live till fourscore,—­long enough to read everything that was worth reading,—­“Et tunc magna mei sub terris ibit imago.”  Much wider is spread the pleasure which old men take in completing their secular affairs, the inventor his inventions, the agriculturist his experiments, and all old men in finishing their houses, rounding their estates, clearing their titles, reducing tangled interests to order, reconciling enmities, and leaving all in the best posture for the future.  It must be believed that there is a proportion between the designs of a man and the length of his life:  there is a calendar of his years, so of his performances.

America is the country of young men, and too full of work hitherto for leisure and tranquillity; yet we have had robust centenarians, and examples of dignity and wisdom.  I have lately found in an old note-book a record of a visit to Ex-President John Adams, in 1825, soon after the election of his son to the Presidency.  It is but a sketch, and nothing important passed in the conversation; but it reports a moment in the life of a heroic person, who, in extreme old age, appeared still erect, and worthy of his fame.