“Wrinkles are not necessary evils,” I was told. “We prefer to do without them, and seldom see them in real life, though we are familiar enough with their presentment in ancient prints. My actual age is one hundred and fourteen years, and I hope to live a life of honourable usefulness for many years to come, without losing the proud consciousness that I belong to a race of beings fashioned and developed in the Life-giver’s own image.”
I could only ejaculate the surprise I felt at this startling information, and stammer something to the effect that I had never before seen anyone who had lived a whole century, and that when such a rare thing did occur in my country, it was considered a fit occurrence to be recorded in the newspapers.
“Can you tell me what anyone of my age would look like in your country? Supposing that I myself were one of you, and had reached my present age under the normal conditions which govern life with you, what do you really suppose I would look like?”
I am the reverse of clever with my pencil, but the picture which I rapidly sketched would, in my opinion, have proved rather flattering than otherwise, under the circumstances indicated by the Principal. She, however, evidently did not regard it in that light, for she looked at the sketch with a face of horror and repulsion, which was as comical to me as it was evidently real.
“What a frightful country to live in,” she exclaimed, “if everyone who has attained to years of discretion is doomed to look like that! I would rather pass my probation with the spirits than endure such a hideous mockery of life. To watch the gradual decay of all physical beauty must be an almost unendurable torment.”
“There you are mistaken,” I responded, somewhat warmly. “Our old people, provided they have, by an honourable and useful life, gained the respect of their fellows, are honoured more in old age than in comparative youth. It is true that the eyesight becomes impaired; the sense of hearing fails; the teeth fall out; the appetite becomes dulled; strength vanishes; and the gait becomes feeble and halting. But it is also true that in most cases the mental faculties are simultaneously affected, and that the consciousness of physical deterioration, therefore, fails to affect our old people as powerfully as you might think.”
“Worse and worse!” cried the Principal, with emphatic conviction. “It seems to me that with you to live is simply to be fully conscious of dying. No New Amazonian would support such a miserable existence for a day. I, for one, would at once resolve to disembody myself, and seek final glorification in a less trammelled state.”
“Disembody yourself? Do you mean that you would commit suicide?”
“I mean that my body should cease to live.”
“But it is a crime to take the life God gave us.”