A61390:230
A discourse concerning old-age tending to the instruction, caution and comfort of aged persons…
A discourse concerning old-age tending to the instruction, caution and comfort of aged persons / by Richard Steele ...
London: printed by J. Astwood for Tho. Parkhurst, 1688
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
SECT. VII.
THE Seventh Inconvenience that is1 charged on Old-age is, That it is attended with Contempt. Old People commonly are despised, especially when they are not supported with good Estates. Most People avoid them, and treat them as superfluous Creatures. For the generality of men do value others not for their Wisdom, or real Virtue, but either for some likeness of disposition, or some usefulness. Now the Ancient are not, by the disparity of their years, so complaisant, nor by their disability so helpful as heretofore; and thereupon they are contemned by younger people: Especially also when they are grown decrepit, and confined to their chairs or chambers; then are they an eye-sore to their successors, who secretly wish them well in Heaven, or any where out of their way upon Earth. It is too evident, how unpleasing their groans, their coughing, and their other weaknesses are. They that can brook the peevishness, and the uncleanliness of their ⟨p. 172⟩Children, cannot bear with it in their Parents: All their former parts and pains are forgotten, and they are beheld, as last years Almanacs, wholly out of date.
THE Seventh Inconvenience that is1 charged on Old-age is, That it is attended with Contempt. Old People commonly are despis'd, especially when they are not supported with good Estates. Most People avoid them, and treat them as superfluous Creatures. For the generality of men do value others not for their Wisdom, or real Vertue, but either for some likeness of disposition, or some usefulness. Now the Ancient are not, by the disparity of their years, so complaisant, nor by their disability so helpful as heretofore; and thereupon they are contemned by younger people: Especially also when they are grown decrepit, and confin'd to their chairs or chambers; then are they an eye-sore to their successors, who secretly wish them well in Heaven, or any where out of their way upon Earth. It is too evident, how unpleasing their groans, their coughing, and their other weaknesses are. They that can brook the peevishness, and the uncleanliness of their