Wheeling Compiler

From the Spirit and Manners of the Age.

FRAGMENTS OF THE ANTEDILUVIAN DIARY.

BY MISS JEWSBURY.

Reflections of Methuselah in his youth—in middle age—and in old age.

To day I am a hundred years old. How blissful are the feelings of boyhood! My senses are acute as the tree with the shrinking leaf. My blood bounds through my veins as the river pours through the valley, rejoicing in its strength. Life lies before me like another plain of Shinar—vast, unoccupied, inviting—I will fill it with achievements and pleasures! In about sixty years it will be time for me to think of marrying; my kinswoman Zillah will by that time have emerged from childhood; she already gives promise, I hear, of comeliness and discretion. Twenty years hence I will pay a visit to her father, that I may see how she grows; meanwhile, I will build a city to receive her when she becomes my wife.

Near three centuries have passed since my marriage. Can it be! It seems but yesterday since I sported like a young antelope round my father's tent, or, climbing the dark cedars, nestled like a bird among the thick boughs—and now I am a man of authority, as well as in the prime of life. I lead out my trained servants to the fight, and sit head of the council, beneath the very tree where, as an infant, my mother lulled me to sleep. Jared, my youngest born, a lovely babe of thirty summers, is dead: but I have four goodly sons remaining. And my three daughters are fair as their mother, whom I first met her in the Acacia grove where now stands one of my city watch-towers. They are the pride of the plain, no less for their acquirements than their beauty. No damsel carries the pitcher from the fountain with the grace of Adah, none can dry the summer fruit like Azubah—and none can fashion a rope of skins with the skill of Milcah. When their cousin Mahalaleel has seen another half century, he shall take the choice of the three.

My eight hundredth birth day! And now I feel the approach of age and infirmity. My beard is become white as the blossoms of the almond tree. I am constrained to use a staff when I journey; the stars look less bright than formerly: the flowers smell less odorous; I have laid Zillah in the tomb of the rock; Micah is gone to the dwelling of Mahalaleel: my sons take my place at the council and in the field: all is changed. The long future is become the short past. The earth is full of violence: the ancient and the honorable are sinking beneath the young and the vicious. The hills resound through the length and breadth of the land, where once dwelt a quiet people; all is changed. The beasts of the field and the monsters of the deep grow bold and press on us with unwonted fury; traditions, visions, and threatenings are abroad. What fearful doom hangs over this fair world, I know not; it is enough that I am leaving it; yet another five or eight score years, and the tale will be complete. But have I, in every deed, trod this earth nearly a thousand years? It is false, I am yet a boy. I have had a dream—a long busy dream; of buying and selling; marrying and giving in marriage; of building and planting; feasting and warring; sorrowing and rejoicing; loving and hating: but it is false to call it a life. Go to—it has been a vision of the night; and now that I am awake, I will forget it.—"Lamech, my son, how long is it since we planted the garden of oaks beside the river? Was it yesterday?" My father, dost thou remember when my sister carried me beneath them in her arms, and wove me chaplets of their leaves." Thou art right my son, and I am old. Lead me to thy mother's tomb, and there leave me to meditate. What am I the better for my past length of being? Where will be its records when I am gone? They are yonder—on all sides, Will those massy towers fall? Will these golden plains become desolate! Will the children that call me father, forget! The seers utter dark sayings upon their harps, when they sing of the future; they say our descendants shall be men of dwindled stature; that the years of their lives shall be contracted to the span of our boyhood; but what is that future to me? I have listened to the tales of Paradise—far in the blue distance. I have seen the dark tops of its cedars. I have heard the solemn melodies of Jubal when he sat on the sea shore, and the sound of the waves mingled with his harping. I have seen angels the visitants of men—I have seen an end of all perfection—what is the future to me?