Languet spoke of its effects upon others. Old Estienne Pasquier in that uncomfortable portion of his _Jeux Poëtiques_ which he entitles _Vieillesse Rechignée_ writes as a self-observer, and his picture is not more favourable. _Je ne nourry dans moy qu'une humeur noire, Chagrin, fascheux, melancholic, hagard, Grongneux, despit, presomptueux, langard, Je fay l'amour au bon vin et au boire._ But the bottle seems not to have put him in good humour either with others or himself. _Tout la monde me put; je vy de telle sort, Que je ne fay meshuy que tousser et cracher, Que de fascher autruy, et d'autruy me fascher; Je ne supporte nul, et nul ne me supporte. Un mal de corps je sens, un mal d'esprit je porte; Foible de corps je veux, mais je ne puis marcher; Foible de esprit je n'oze à mon argent toucher, Voilà les beaux effects que la vieillesse apporte! O combien est heureux celuy qui, de ses ans Jeune, ne passe point la fleur de son printans, Ou celuy qui venu s'en retourne aussi vite! Non: je m'abuze; ainçois ces maux ce sont appas Qui me feront un jour trouver doux mon trespas, Quand il plaira a Dieu que ce monde je quitte._ The miserable life I lead is such, That now the world loathes me and I loathe it; What do I do all day but cough and spit, Annoying others, and annoyed as much! My limbs no longer serve me, and the wealth Which I have heap'd, I want the will to spend. So mind and body both are out of health, Behold the blessings that on age attend! Happy whose fate is not to overlive The joys which youth, and only youth can give, But in his prime is taken, happy he! Alas, that thought is of an erring heart, These evils make me willing to depart When it shall please the Lord to summon me. The Rustic, in Hammerlein's curious dialogues _de Nobilitate et Rusticitate_, describes his old age in colours as dark as Pasquier's; _plenus dierum_, he says, _ymmo senex valde, id est, octogenarius, et senio confractus, et heri et nudiustercius, ymmo plerisque revolutionibus annorum temporibus, corporis statera recurvatus, singulto, tussito, sterto, ossito, sternuto, balbutio, catharizo, mussico, paraleso, gargariso, cretico, tremo, sudo, titillo, digitis sæpe geliso, et insuper (quod deterius est) cor meum affligitur, et caput excutitur, languet spiritus, fetet anhelitus, caligant oculi et facillant_[1] _articuli, nares confluunt, crines defluunt, tremunt tactus et deperit actus, dentes putrescunt et aures surdescunt; de facili ad iram provocor, difficili revocor, cito credo, tarde discedo._ [Footnote 1: _Facillant_ is here evidently the same as _vacillant_. For the real meaning of _facillo_ the reader is referred to Du Cange in v. or to Martinii Lexicon.]