“Good-morning! And how is John Quincy Adams to-day?”
“Thank you,” was the ex-President’s answer; “John Quincy Adams himself is well, sir; quite well, I thank you. But the house in which he lives at present is becoming dilapidated. It is tottering upon its foundation. Time and the seasons have nearly destroyed it. Its roof is pretty well worn out. Its walls are much shattered, and it trembles with every wind. The old tenement is becoming almost uninhabitable, and I think John Quincy Adams will have to move out of it soon; but he himself is quite well, sir; quite well.”
It was not long afterward that he had his second and fatal stroke of paralysis.
“This is the last of earth,” he said. “I am content.” (Text.)
(1449)
Human Companionship Slighted—See [Animals, Absurd Fondness for].
HUMAN FACTOR, THE
It is not on the fertility of the soil, it is not on the mildness of the atmosphere, that the prosperity of nations chiefly depends. Slavery and superstition can make Campania a land of beggars, and can change the plain of Enna into a desert. Nor is it beyond the power of human intelligence and energy, developed by civil and spiritual freedom, to turn sterile rocks and pestilential marshes into cities and gardens.—Macaulay.
(1450)
Human Life Lengthening—See [Longevity Increasing].