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 Egyptian," and they come down to our present day; to
Bismarck, who, while so brilliant as a young man that he attracted the
attention of Europe, was not great till he was past forty-five; to
Disraeli, who, though so dazzling in his youth and early prime that
he astounded Parliament and filled the press with comment, was not
constructive or permanent in his success till comparatively late in
life.
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