Masters of old age : the value of longevity illustrated by practical examples / by Nicholas Smith.

  • Smith, Nicholas, 1836-1911.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Masters of old age : the value of longevity illustrated by practical examples / by Nicholas Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    high prize of life. When within a few years of being a century old, she was not only busy attending to many household affairs, but in the art of embroidery she thought herself equal to any young woman in Warsaw, and her speci- mens exhibited at the fairs never failed to take the first premium. Only a few days ago I read an interesting story of the life of ]\Ir. George Ives of Fre- donia, 'New York. On the day that he was one hundred years old some friends called at his house to congratulate him upon having attained to so great an age. They expected to find him in his home comfortably seated in an easy chair, waiting patiently for the final summons. But he was not there. They were told by the house- keeper that the old gentleman was in the field, following a harrow! Mr. Ives does not believe in the ^^antique morality that when a man is seventy years old or over, ^^it is time for him to lay aside the things of the present life and to prepare his soul for the next. He told his visitors that he could see no reason why he should stop work because he was a hundred years old. How not to get old in the sense that one must master the inclination to let his mind and body sag downward, is one of the great prob-