of
health, you can always make the young man in you the victor.

Do not conclude that things are fixed, that conditions are permanent,
and that, as there is no apparent place for you as circumstances now
exist, there never will be. Fix in your mind this dreadful and
glorious paradox, that even the most permanent things are transient.
Study the clouds, those visible emblems of human experience and
institutions. A twist, a curve, a change in the shape and outline, and
final disappearance into the universal blue--such is their destiny;
and yet each instant they are permanent, apparently, so far as that
instant is concerned.

"The rushing metamorphosis
Dissolving all that fixture is,
Melts things that be to things that seem
And solid Nature to a dream."

It will be useful, also, to consider the political machine. There is
nothing which, in its day, is apparently more permanent or powerful;
yet it dissolves in obedience to the very laws on which it is built.
So, my friend, there is never a time that you can truthfully say that
there is not, and never will be, any place for you in the order of
society and affairs.

No, indeed; things are not fixed. Recall the story of the Oriental
monarch. His wise men with all their wisdom could not produce a single
truth that stood the test of time. As the tale runs, the ruler, weary
of the falsehoods of so-called learning, called his wise men together
and said to them:

"I sicken of your daily sagacities which the next day prove to be
follies. Tell me one truth--only one. I ask but a single sentence. But
let it be a sentence that will be as true next year as this year--a
sentence which always has been true and always will be true. I give
you one year to formulate one such sentence. If at the end of that
time you cannot state an absolute verity, your lives will be
forfeited."

At the end of the year the wise men came to their dread lord and said
that they had found one universal truth. "State it," said their
sovereign. They answered: "Here is the only sentence our wisdom can
construct which is absolutely true: '_And this, too, shall pass
away._'" And so shall your misfortunes, my friend past fifty, pass
away. "It is a long road that has no turning," declares the maxim of
the people. Your road is no exception.

The historic instances of great success past fifty are numerous and
inspiring. They begin with Moses, who was forty years of age when "he
slew the Egyptia