ad of smiling, which keeps the cheeks
stretched and smooth, we frown, which keeps them contracted and engraves
wrinkles on them.

Instead of looking at the rosy side of things, which makes the eyes
clear and bright, we run after the impossible or the unlikely to happen,
which makes us look gloomy. In short, I may say that old age is of our
own make, for youth is placed at our disposal for ever and ever.

CHAPTER VIII

THE SECRET OF OLD AGE

The organs of man are like the works of a clock. If they are not used,
they rust; and when, after a period of rest, it is attempted to set them
in motion again, the chances are that the human machine will work badly,
or not at all.

Therefore, wind up your clock always and regularly, and it will keep
going. This does not apply only to your bodily clock, but to your mental
one as well.

Persons who work regularly, and, above all, in moderation, especially
those who maintain the activity of their physical and mental faculties,
live longer than those who abandon active life at the approach of old
age.

Do not stop taking bodily exercise. Go on having your walk and your
ride; go on working steadily; go on even having your little smoke, if
you have always been used to it, without ever abusing it--in fact, if
your constitution is good, forget that you are advancing in age; go on
living exactly as you have always lived, only doing everything in more
and more moderation. Busy people live much longer than idle ones.
Sovereigns who lead a very active life live long.

See the Pope! Moltke, Bismarck, Disraeli, Carlyle, Victor Hugo,
Gladstone, Ruskin, Littre, Darwin, De Lesseps, Renan, Pasteur--all great
workers--died nearly eighty or over eighty years of age.

It is not work, but overwork, that may kill; it is not smoking, but
inveterate smoking, that hurts; it is not a little drinking that does
any harm, but too much indulgence in drink which kills.

Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who died only a short time ago, was writing
brilliant articles for the New York _American_ only a few days before
her death; maybe, she was writing one an hour before it.

Her death at the age of eighty-seven may furnish a moral lesson to those
who desire a long life. She died in complete possession of her mental
and physical faculties.

At eighty-five, Gladstone was felling trees in his garden and writing
articles on Homer and theology as a rest from his political labours. At
eighty-two, De Less