Here lies interred in the eternity of the past, from whence there is no resurrection for the days — whatever there may be for the dust — the thirty-third year of an ill-spent life, which, after a lingering disease of many months sank into a lethargy, and expired, January 22d, 1821, A.D. leaving a successor inconsolable for the very loss which occasioned its existence.
I'm sorry you are wiser, I sorry you are taller; I liked you better foolish and I liked you better smaller.
Our birthdays are feathers in the broad wing of time.
The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.
To divide one's life by years is of course to tumble into a trap set by our own arithmetic. The calendar consents to carry on its dull wall-existence by the arbitrary timetables we have drawn up in consultation with those permanent commuters, Earth and Sun. But we, unlike trees, need grow no annual rings.