Note 7 — THE LADDER DANCER.

I love to luxuriate in a note: it is like hunting in an unenclosed country. One word about the affectations of Graybeards. Among all the ten thousand reasons for their gray hairs, no one ever thought of years as being at least a probable cause. It is one of the very few hereditary peculiarities of physical constitution, which are loudly proclaimed and gladly seized, to apologise for the sin of hoary locks. Acute sorrow, or sudden surprise;—indigestion—that talismanic thing, the nerves—love, speculation—or anything, in short, are all approved theories to explain their first intrusion among the legitimate ringlets of male and female persons of “no particular age.” Even it is said that people have awoke gray who lay down under very different colours; of course, they had had a bad dream, or lain on the wrong side, but no conscientious perruquier could have sworn to their identity under such a metamorphosis. In short, gray hairs are purely accidental; they have nothing to do with years; and being deemed a misfortune, have from time immemorial been always spoken of with reverence, but nowhere that I can recollect are they spoken of with affection, save in the beautiful song, “John Anderson, my Jo,” where the kind-hearted wife invokes blessings on the frosty pow of her aged partner.