“THE SEVENTH LAP"

Evening Star, Issue 19003, 27 July 1925, Page 3

“THE SEVENTH LAP"

“Of course, sixty is not (ho respectable age. it used to bo. What wi!h cleaner habits, good drainage, in ore exercise, and less alcohol, wo are increasing the average duration of life so much that seam nobody will bo really venerable who is not within sight of the nineties,” writes '‘Alpha of the Plough,” in the London ‘ Star.’ “But although sixty is nor whai it. was, it is a substantial total, and if ever ii is decant to talk of oile’s self it is when one has set out on one's seventh lap. By tins time the adventure of liie has taken shape and wo begun to look at the balance-sheet ns an accomplished fact rather than as the giow'ng prospectus of youth. “The ledger is pretty full, and its future entries are not likely to seriously aflcci the total. Wo know something of the be. i and worst of things, and if we hope less I think wo fear less.

“When I look back I can hardly recall a disaster which did not in the end turn out io be soinolhing quite different from what I thought it would bo at the lime, or a. piece of good fortune wh’clr did not discover (laws in I lie enjoyment. “ It as. I think, a common experience that when we are a little blown up with pride about anything there is a humiliation waiting for ua round the, corner that- will administer a salutary prick to our self-esteem. And, on the other hand, wo not seldom discover that the worst tumble Inis the stimulating qualities of a pick-me-up, ‘ You novel can tell,’ as Shaw’s incomparable waitc says.

“ It is tills experience of the incalculable ness of things that makes us at sixty ra i’-e less excitable than we need to be —Kitin' more disposed to take things without paid and without ecstasy. Wo refuse to b browbeaten and terrorised by that grea bogy the future, for wo have discovered t l, meaning of the sensible man who observed ‘I have had many sore troubles in my life—but most of them never happened,’

“At sixty I think a good many of us cm say the game. Wo find that we have oft"’ made ourselves uncommonly nr'scrab'o in ih present because -of our fears that some thing would happen which generally did no' happen. “And in worrying less about how (Ik world wavs, wo tend, I think, io find nvnpleasure in certain things that we can etnor without any sense tint \va arc roqvinrible for them or that we can inllii'iien without annoyance to ourselves or ■others. “'He-ve is the world of l-a-1.-.s, winch con l ' never lie really enjoyed whi'o tho heal o r the battle was on, but winch is now onm F explore at leisure. There arc a'l he o'd 'frieiiddiips that we have mad" in bookto revive, and new friend hips that we haw put off making to invoke. “It was Air Birrell who, when asked what ho would do when he retired, said 1m would setllo down and ‘ ready read Boswell.’ At sixty one foola like that. 'I in’ harness that has liiteh"d us to the cart c things is loosening, -and the bit; and the curb are begriming to relax. We, have done om 1 share of the collar work, find can leave others to do theirs. “We-can look for our slippers and prare" the shelves for a book of the right vintage or take out the chessmen or poster about ; n the garden. I find there are heaps of pleasant things to do at sixty.”