CHAPTER XX
WOMEN LIVE LONGER THAN MEN
Heller, who has collected the greatest number of instances of extreme long life, found 1,000 persons who lived from 100 to 110, 60 from 110 to 120, 30 from 120 to 130, 15 from 130 to 140, 6 from 140 to 150, and one who lived to be 169 years of age.
French writes that from 1881 to 1890, in Massachusetts, there were 203 deaths of persons past the age of 100. Of these 153 were women and 50 were men. Let us add that the parts of the world which have supplied, in proportion to their population, the greatest number of centenarians, are New England, Scotland, and Brittany.
All these centenarians, without exception, have been found among the humbler classes, and most of them among peasants—that is to say, among the workers of the community who lead quiet, regular, and busy lives.
It is worthy of note that just those very principles which were laid down by the Founder of the Christian religion as best for the eternal welfare of the soul have been proved by the passing years to be best for the body also.
It is not those who are clad in purple and fine linen and fare sumptuously every day who are strong enough to climb to the clear heights of a great age. Neither titles nor wealth keep the feet from wearying of the uphill path of life.
They who would have their days long in the land must honour their great mother, Nature. They must walk in her ways. Nature does not rejoice in sluggards, therefore they must work, and the more steadily they work the longer they live.
Men of thought have always been distinguished for their age. Solon, Sophocles, Pindar, Anacreon, and Xenophon were octogenarians. Kant, Buffon, Goethe, Fontenelle, and Newton were over eighty. Michael Angelo and Titian were eighty-nine and ninety-nine respectively. Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, lived to be eighty.
Victor Hugo was over eighty. Gladstone, who worked every minute of his life, always in search of new subjects to master, and who took his recreation in bodily work—gardening, cutting down his trees—died at eighty-eight.