If you would keep fresh in body, you must not pay too much attention to rheumatic twinges, and sit still in a corner because you are too stiff to rise. Take your painful walk, and you will be less stiff when you come back. You will have fresh life from outside, and not be a burden to younger lives impatient of your chimney corner.
One of my friends, who is nearly eighty, has taken a trip to Kansas this winter, and has been delighted with the new life she has seen. I need not say that her delight makes her delightful to others. "You need not suppose," she writes, "that I am going to settle down and be an old lady yet. I am planning a visit to California next year."
Mrs. Horace Mann and Miss Elizabeth Peabody were both nearly eighty when they went to Washington on official business—something in reference to the Indian troubles, I believe. I have already cited my mother's friend who began to study botany at ninety. And why not? If the end of knowledge was to help us to get our daily bread, we might at last fold our hands; but if it is to open our minds to the glory of the universe, to make us more worthy to be the immortal souls we hope we are, why should we not be just as eager to learn at ninety as at nine?
A sensitive woman is sure to have many and many an experience in life which will make her heart sad and sore; but I think that every brave and good woman will also feel more and more, as time goes on, that the kingdom of heaven is within her.
ADVERTISEMENTS
The Riverside Library for Young People.
A Series of Volumes devoted to History, Biography,
Mechanics, Travel, Natural History, and Adventure. With
Maps, Portraits, etc., where needed for fuller illustration
of the volume. Each, uniform, strongly bound
in cloth, 16mo, 200-250 pages, 75 cents.
1. The War of Independence.
By John Fiske. With Maps.
2. George Washington: An Historical Biography.
By Horace E. Scudder. With Portrait and Illustrations.