236 CENTENARIANISM VI 



at sixty years of age have an expectation of a little 

 less than eleven years of life. Distinguished men 

 live a shorter time than less distinguished, on account 

 of their harder work ; married live longer than un- 

 married persons, on account, perhaps, of the measured 

 tranquillity of connubial life; women longer than 

 men, because they lead an easier life ; and the clergy 

 longer than other professional men, for the same 

 reason. 



From these facts it is not difficult to draw the 

 lesson of longevity. After all, the prolonging of their 

 own lives is not a thing about which men should 

 take much thought ; as long as they are careful not 

 directly to shorten life, and careful to preserve health, 

 longevity and centenarianism may well be left to 

 take their own way. The celebrated Italian, Louis 

 Cornaro, carefully weighing his egg, and measuring his 

 wine for his daily meals, refusing to allow matters of 

 a disturbing nature to come under his attention, and 

 taking a thousand precautions, all to enable his pitiful 

 old frame to vegetate a few years the longer on the 

 earth's face, is not a pleasing figure to contemplate. 

 True it is, that he who would save his life shall lose 

 it ; for the existence of such a being as Cornaro is not 

 comparable day for day with that of an active man. 

 When the element of intensity is taken into considera- 

 tion, there is perhaps very much less difference be- 

 tween the quantities lived by various men than would 

 appear from the simple record of time. But whilst it 

 is not for the men of to-day to cherish the search for 

 elixirs of life, nor to desire nor endeavour to become 



