A few weeks
afterwards he came in, looking very good-natured, and brought me a
paper, which I have here, and from which I shall read you some
portions, if you don't object. He had been thinking the matter
over, he said,--had read Cicero "De Senectute," and made up his
mind to meet old age half way. These were some of his reflections
that he had written down; so here you have.
THE PROFESSOR'S PAPER.
There is no doubt when old age begins. The human body is a furnace
which keeps in blast three-score years and ten, more or less. It
burns about three hundred pounds of carbon a year, (besides other
fuel,) when in fair working order, according to a great chemist's
estimate. When the fire slackens, life declines; when it goes out,
we are dead.
It has been shown by some noted French experimenters, that the
amount of combustion increases up to about the thirtieth year,
remains stationary to about forty-five, and then diminishes. This
last is the point where old age starts from. The great fact of
physical life is the perpetual commerce with the elements, and the
fire is the measure of it.
About this time of life, if food is plenty where you live,--for
that, you know, regulates matrimony,--you may be expecting to find
yourself a grandfather some fine morning; a kind of domestic
felicity that gives one a cool shiver of delight to think of, as
among the not remotely possible events.
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