RANDOM THOUGHTS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 201, 9 February 1877, Page 14

RANDOM THOUGHTS.

Ohe rough night lately on board a steamer the conversation of several chance acquaintances happened to turn upon their past lives. As the company consisted of men of different nationalities and of various walks of life the talk was full of interest. The stories of their lives varied widely one from another, yet each one, without exception, ended his history with a wish, ardently expressed, that life could be commenced over again, and what a different course would then be steered. The rich man, travelling for pleasure, talked of chances in life allowed to slip by, which, if grasped, would have made him still wealthier. The youth, fresh from the University, lamented the time wasted in idleness and dissipation which might have been turned to bo much better account ; and an American who hud been an officer in the confederate army expressed as the dearest wish of his heart that the war could only commence over again, for he knew now to a certainty how Ulysses S. Grant, and I forget how many thousands of men, might have been annihilated in one of that general's celebrated marches. These reasons for a renewal of life were expressed openly and without reserve ; but one can easily fancy that there must have been a few amongst these half-dozen men who desired to call back a portion of their lives from other and far different motives. Motives too sacred to be talked of there and to be exposed to public gaze. But when the company had broken up and each one had betaken himself to his berth, and whilst the groaning and plunging of the teamer banished sleep — no doubt the conversation just ended must have brought back to the memory of these the remembrance of some loved object (now no more) on whose heart a pang had too often been inflicted by a cruel word or thoughtless action on the part of the man who would give worlds to recall them, but which could never be atoned for on this side of the grave. Such words, lightly spoken by the utterer, but cuttiugdeep into the heart of the object addressed, are like a two-edged sword, returning at such moments as these with terrible force on the memory, and carrying with them bitter grief and remorse. The man who regrets chances gone or time misspent can take hope and comfort in the thought that he will make, in some measure, the future compensate for the past — that though twenty chances may have, in the course of his previous life, fallen in his way, the next one he will use wisely and make it lead on to fortune. But the remembrance of unkindness to a being who had no thought but his welfare and to whom in this world he can never make amends is the bitterest of all pangs. But is it true that if we could live our lives over again we would avoid all the shoals and quicksands in our paths, and seize upon all the advantages presented to us ? In the conversation that gives rise to these remarks the wish on each one's part was sadly but confidently uttered, and in a tone that implied no shadow of a doubt that could the wish be fulfilled the new life would be a very different one. The youth of twenty thought if he were only ten again, he would know how to secure a sure path to fortune, and the man of forty thought the youth unreasonable, and that if he himself could only be put back to twenty there would be no difficulty in achieving any object under the eun. And here we see at once that if we could, as Hamlet says, " like a crab go backward," and take off the desired number of years to make a fresh start in life, the course run anew would, it is to be feared, fall very much in the old tracks. For if the youth at twenty wishes he were ten again under the idea that he would lead those ten previous years in a different way, why is it that when he reaches thirty you hear him then desiring to be twenty ? And again, when he leaches forty, he thinks if he were only thirty again how different he would make everything. But if he is so firmly persuaded that, could he live part of his Hie over again, he would render his previous experience of such use to himself, why does he not. seeing that he cannot live the same years again, bring that experience to bear on future years ? Is not the fact that mankind as a rule do not do so proof that if our wishes could possibly be gratified, and we could recall a portion of our past existence, in the hope of giving it a different direction, in the majority of cases our second fives would lead us to the identical positions where we found ourselves at the end of our first lives P All our previous experience would, for most of us, go for naught. We fancy that our past lives would teach us to do this and avoid that, forgetting, as Coleridge so well expresses it, that "the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind us." It is in vain, however, wishing to be young again. We will grow old notwithstanding the recipes of those kind-hearted individuals who offer, for the payment of a email fee, to make us young and beautiful for ever. Dr. Faust had a short spell of life over again, and a pretty course he ran— a model young gentleman he turned out. It is to be hoped, for the rake of his friends and neighbors who lived round about him during Lib first career, that his second life was not better than his first one. If it was they must have had, as " A. Ward" would say, "a rough old time of it." To all those wishing to grow young again, I would recommend a careful perusal of this gentleman s short but eventful career, with particular directions to take note of its very brilliant ending, and to remember that in these degenerate days the only way to grow young again with a view of profiting by past experience it to place that experience as a light on the bows of your vessel and not on its Stern. X. Y. Z.