346 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



short their career. There will be no dijSiculty in any one of us search- 

 ing about in our experience and calling to mind instances of people who 

 had acquired wealth and position, in the enjoyment of good health and 

 relative youth, who yet strove so fiercely to keep themselves (or it may 

 be their thought was for their friends chiefly), supplied with amuse- 

 ments that they fell into the fatal error of doing more than their health 

 would warrant or their constitution sustain. 



Perhaps the most important quality, mental or physical, which 

 conditions the attainment and enjoyment of advanced years, is a serene 

 mental view; a capacity for deliberate enjoyment of whatsoever betide. 

 In short a cheerful temperament is as good as an insurance policy; 

 indeed far better. Much might be said along this line of prevention 

 of death by the prolongation of life, but it has been presented to every 

 one of us many times in endless guises and from divers sources. The 

 difficulties are that we fail to realize the practical applicability of oft- 

 reiterated truths which become trite and wearisome and yet are of 

 golden quality and unspeakable value. It is my purpose to offer a 

 few useful hints how one may definitely set about to earn a postpone- 

 ment of the evil days which come upon all, it may be not of ill health, 

 but of a lessening capacity for enjoyment. Heaven has been most 

 cleverly described as being the condition of one who knows what he 

 wants and is able to enjoy it when he gets it, and the reverse of this. 

 Hell, is clearly the atmosphere of that individual who does not know 

 what he wants and could not enjoy it even if he did get it. 



Touching the question of self-education in serenity which is ad- 

 mittedly one of the most important accomplishments which any one 

 can acquire, it will be found by each that ever so little attention in this 

 direction will be followed by prompt reward. For instance take the 

 ever present subject of diet. As the effects of age become obstrusive, 

 it is the part of wisdom to omit the use of those stimulating articles 

 of diet to which we accustom ourselves throughout our youth and adult 

 life. It may not be so plain to all, as it is to a man even of my age, 

 how easy and pleasant a thing it is to put aside this or that item of 

 food or drink and substitute for it either less or something different 

 and more suited to our present needs. It is almost a working axiom 

 in the achievement of long life that the less we eat and the less variety 

 of objects eaten, the better. Exceptions will arise; sometimes follies 

 may be committed by carrying these thoughts too far. But in the 

 main it can not be gainsaid, and a great array of conspicuous illus- 

 trative instances can be pointed out, that as a working equation, the 

 least should be eaten compatible with existence, to secure the greatest 

 amount of continued health. As will be shown more specifically 

 later, the paramount condition of buoyant youthfulness, whose loss 

 is known to characterize the beginning of old age, is elasticity of 

 the tissues. To preserve flexibility, it may readily be possible, as 



