IMMORTALITY 193 



I ask'd thee, "Give me immortality." 



Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile, 



Like wealthy men who care not how they give. 



But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills. 



And beat me down and marr'd and wasted me, 



And tho' they could not end me, left me maimed 



To dwell in presence of immortal youth, 



Immortal age beside immortal youth, 



And all I was, in ashes. ^ „., 



Tennyson, Tithonus. 



As Kim's Lama said about the cobra, " He is on the wheel as we 

 are — hfe ascending or descending — very far from a deh verance." 



Still, the wheel is advancing, not stationary. Things do 

 get better. Even the Great War has shown us that 



Civlysation doos git forrid 



Sometimes upon a powder-cart. ^, „. , „ 



^ ^ The Bigelow Papers. 



Anyone who has lived through the last sixty years, as I have, 



must recognize that, in spite of temporary set-backs, the world 



is a better, a cleaner and a kindlier place to live in than it 



was in the middle of the last century. Mankind does advance, 



slowly if you like. He is said to have taken fifty thousand 



years to learn how to produce a polished arrow, or kclt, from 



a flaked one; but still in the end he did produce it, and it was 



a great advance in civilization. 



The last two pages dealing with old age may to some produce 



the impression of melancholy and decay; but this should not 



be the case : 



Grow old along with me ! 



The best is yet to be. 

 The last of life, for which the first was made: 



Our times are in His hand 



Who saith. "A whole I planned, 

 "Youth shows but half; trust God: see all nor be afraid!" 



R. Bbowninq. 



Further, it must be remembered that these pages deal only 

 with the visible body, its cells and tissues. They leave out of 

 account altogether other elements of our being which do not 

 come within the scope of the present book. Perhaps one may 

 be permitted to close the work by quoting the hackneyed, 

 if hopeful, lines of Longfellow : 



"Dust thou art, to dust rcturnest" 

 Was not spoken of the Soul. 

 SL 13 



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