FIELD AND STUDY 



What an uncertain and accidental thing seems the 

 gift of long life ! It comes to the just and to the in- 

 just, to the wise and to the foolish. It is as indis- 

 criminating as the rainfall. I see almost daily a man 

 walking the street here, going to a saloon for his 

 glass of grog, who is ninety-three. He never had 

 much intellect, and it seems to have grown less and 

 less as the years have passed. In my youth I knew 

 a man, a very ordinary person, who lived to be 

 considerably over a hundred; he lived alone in 

 his last years, and lived much like a beast. The 

 length of his years was no measure of his worth 

 to himself or to his fellows. Only recently a man in 

 Sullivan County, a common laborer, but a worthy 

 man, is said to have reached the great age of one 

 hundred and twelve years. I know a sculptor who 

 went up there and made a bust of him. An old 

 fellow in my native town lived to be eighty-three, 

 and was drunk much of the time, often lying out 

 half the night in cold and storms. I happen to think 

 of him now because I saw his name recently in the 

 cemetery. Sir William Temple relates that he had 

 known two persons who lived to be over one hun- 

 dred and twelve, a man and a woman — the latter 

 a servant, the former a common laborer. 



On the other hand, how many men of invaluable 

 service to the world fall by the wayside before they 

 have lived out half their days. If, with his tre- 



296 



