he best and most celebrated works
we possess were written when their authors had attained ripe age, and
during these same ten latter years for which some men, in order that
they may gratify their appetites, say they do not care."

We see not only in this passage but in many other places evidence of the
fact that Cornaro lived a cheerful, contented life. The reform was
evidently not merely in his eating and drinking but fully as much in the
inner thought of his life. This is shown in many passages from his
discourses.

He says: "Although reason should convince them that this is the case,
yet these men refuse to admit it, and pursue their usual life of
disorder as heretofore. Were they to act differently, abandoning their
irregular habits and adopting orderly and temperate ones, they would
live to old age--as I have--in good condition. Being, by the grace of
God, of so robust and perfect a constitution, they would live until they
reached the age of a hundred and twenty, as history points out to us
that others--born, of course, with perfect constitutions--have done, who
led the temperate life.

"I am certain I, too, should live to that age had it been my good
fortune to receive a similar blessing at my birth; but, because I was
born with a poor constitution, I fear I shall not live much beyond a
hundred years."

According to the census of the United States not one man in twenty
thousand attains the age of one hundred years. If we figure out
carefully from these statistics, we find the average is only about
one-third of this period of life.

One of the social customs is that we must eat an extraordinary
meal,--far more than we need, as if life's enjoyment depended on the low
sense of taste,--as if every contract or matter of important business
must have this as an introduction. Theoretically speaking, many people
believe in low living and high thinking, but it is very rare that we
find one who practices it.

The two simple rules of Cornaro deserve our attention: to eat only what
he wanted, that is, what he actually needed for the sustenance of his
body, and to eat only those things which really agreed with him, that
is, those which were really helpful to the sustenance of his life. If we
should consider eating merely as a means and not an end, Cornaro's idea
that the normal age of a human being was one hundred and twenty years
would not be such a wild dream.

Another almost universally recognized requisite is exerc