A BREEZY SPEECH.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXVI, Issue 13434, 22 July 1911, Page 9

A BREEZY SPEECH.

"IS A MAN TOO OLD AT SIXTY."

At the luncheon of the ''oiamonwcaith Club at Adelaide the other day the president, His Honour Mr Justice Gordon, delighted a large number ot members with an address the title for which was 'ls a Man Too Old at Sixty:' Sir Juh.i remarked that, a famous physician. Dr. Osier, Regius Professor'l:f Medicine at Oxford, declared a year or two back that at 60 a man was practically done for. as far as the active business of life was concerned, and just the other day a valued friend of his—when an important duty, for which lie was wclWi'ialitied, was suggested to liim—t=nook his head and said he was f<-o old—lie had turned Gil. Again, within the last few days a juryman at the Su-

prcine Court desired to excuse hiniseU' from serving solely o» Ihe ground .Uijit. lie wwwas pleasantly ridiculed hy the learned t’liiel' Justice—the youngest of the Judges who. ;il 71, "’as working us hard us lie Imd wlmu he was 4(1. It seemed to lie time thgt the absurd notion that a man .should put himself on the scrapheap alter Istt was universally scouted. Xo doubt time that— Treads more soft than ere did midnight thief 7 That slides • his hand under the mi-'ij;'-: pillow Ard can ies off Ids prize—sprang a surprise upon most men wh u the clock -f life .struck lilK Hid that was not the first surprise the creeping thiehad given them. —The First Grey Hair.—

Many of thepr remember, for hist-uice, the particular, rtiornirg, when, in the act <J brushing-thinning locks, they ca'led oiu to the yartner of their joys and sorrows"My dear, I have found a grey hair.' in just such a surprised tone as Haliey's comet might use it it woke up one morning and found a kerosene tin tied to it.; tail. He confessed that he received :•- little shock when, in glancing through year's Commonwealth statistics. lw

saw that, while the whole population of the Commonwealth at the last census numbered 3,773,801 persons, those between 15 and 65 numbered only -152,720. So that on Saturday afternoon.;, when all the world with its wife and bairns turned out to see the football—at a lough calculation, nine out of every iO human beiirj.s in sight, including, of course, the .sucking citizens in tin- perair...■luators—were younger than he was, because he had turned 60, aud saw the sixtv-tirst milestone standing up, not verv far ahead.

—Sonic Famous Examples.— That was ju»t a little chilling. Hut a moment's reflect ion brightened him up, for he remembered the iuet that an enormous portion of the best work of the world had been done, and was being done, nv men over GO. The mere recital of th'e names of such men would talec weeks. He would mention only cm,. <„• t w „ ;„ j..,,.], of the greatest departments of humau effort. In the Church, His Holiness the I ope was still personally controlling the work of the great Roman Catholic Church at over 75. General Booth was still actively engaged m the work of the .'salvation Army at over iso. I„ ui s owll p r .,f (ri . siou Lord Halsbuir at 8! had projected and was personally supervising a monumental work on the Laws of Fno-Liud which would probably take another ]6 years to tiuiali. And Lord MacXawhtcn. one of the greatest lawyers of the a<*e was still delivering brilliant jiidgmcnts°iu the House of Lords and Privy Council it over 80. In the Army Field-Marshal Lord Boberts was GS years when he took command m South Auica. and was still taking an active part m ~„hij,.. .-,n ;l iirs in England lMrid-Marshar Von Moitko at 70 w a? chief strategist in the great FrancoPrussian War. The Dufc,. oi Wellington, after years of fighting, was well over en when he bocau,,. the head of .-, BHtj.i, Cabinet. Tu art Titian painlcd portraits in his 'iitth year, and tli« late G F ttutts finished his great painting. 'The Court of Death' after he was 80. In poetty Lord Twmy ßW i was-over 80 v.Fcn he wrote some of his finest poetrv. Gcethe H^K** 81 * 1 ' at BJ ' ln Philosophy Herbert bpencer was 80 wj-.cn he completed his scries ot philosophic works. In fit on Meredith, \ictor Hugo, Duma,, and raanv other great novelists were writing at W>. In statesmanship Gladstone and Bismarck were at the head of affairs i„ the r respective countries when they were we - over .it. la lull , k . Handel uJ- Jt i ft •' \r'-n ,jtol " r n lT ' ffl signed plans tor

Lord Lister, who wv.s still alive, was delivering public addresses after ho was MX lu science Lord Kelvin's magnilicent intellect was as clear as ever at 85. And Allied Ku-sel 'Wallace, -who was UO, published only the otliev clay a monumental v.-oj-k. In money-making 'iicekefcllei* at over 70 was still eating gold dust with his beef tea. to t!;c detriment of his digestion. This list might be extended to thousands upon thousands of names. —Preparation Before Twenty-live.— But to be Mi-viee.il.ile for great work at or after CD--or, indeed, for any work which counted at all—a man must, as a rme, hive prepared before 25. The man who in youth shackled himself to vice of any kind, who loafed aimlessly through life, was generally fit only for the scrap heap at liO, or earlier. In that sorry category he did not, place the man who had tried, but failed. There were always grenC' :, possibilities ahead-of the man, whatever li'ii age, who made failure a stcppingstoue to future effort and nobler plaits. Indeed, it had often been truly said that a man who had never failed had only half succeeded. Those of them who were fairly 1 Healthy sexagenarians had much to be I thankful for. It was a hopeful time of ! life. Speaking for himself, he could say j that it was a summer day compared with | some experiences of his adolescence, when. ; owing perhaps to badly-mixed doses of I Lord Uvron end John Ca'vin, muffled and : inky hbickncss overspread the worlds, both ; j.-re.sei'il and to come. ] —Threads Worth Holding.— , At GO the battle between courage and j despair, which came once at least to every i sensitive mind, had in the lives of most j men been fought and the enemy vanquisli- ; < A. The sexagenarian had, or ought to , have, settled his philosophy" of life and ' death, because it was a mistake to put oil' ; thinking about your soul till you had , lost 3-yur hair and teeth. At 00 a :nau I found that after all there were threads j in life worth holding.. They were not ; always the threads he would have picked : wiien he was young. Some of them, wI deed, scarcely showed during youth at j all. Huch were the tender memories of I the dead whom they had "loved loug since 1 and lost a while." | —A Tragic Mistake.— I When the man of GO looked back upon ; the woof of his life, it was the silken , threads of kindness which shone most bnsrhtly. As he came nearer to the turn- i ; stiles of ,„ghl, and realised thai he could . ta.ee nothing more of the world's >'ear I through the turnpike than his mother . brought over the toll bridge, he be<ni>i to recognise that the threads of self-iu-tcrest were 100 often rotten strands. He saw that all that J u . could finally possess was what he had given away. And then H he was a- wise man, lie would cheerfully gird himself for the opportunities which remained ior work and service. The lives <>j tiie great men he had mentioned showed that it was a tragic mistake for the wan "t GO to sit down and think his useful J no was over. The ancient sage of storv who. having heard of a magic mill whore old men got ground young again, and tiicu tore his hair and cursed his fate because he could not find it, was a silly ass._ Aobler iar the spirit of Lord Tennyson s Llysses: J Old age hat], yc t his honour and his toil, Death closes all; but .something ere the end, ° Some work of noble note may yet be done. J —Cups of Happiness Undrained.— It had hcen happily said that Alexander died not have wept for more worlds to Trf IUIT .£r il r 7 IIC ]Uld ,JCCn a little wiwr -ua a hdlc less self-conceited. He did worlds that his royal sway had .foyer •wd u,t, u i ilm . T]]o iccU -as nothing left that was worth K ; I.t one had known and tasted all ]i£ "1 iguoiance and selfishness. There were aHvays cups of happiness undrained gran id '»§}'»»-'™ l, Wessnigs yet to be'gtC; would &M Uld bUt l6 ° k for them.-Time would float them very much as they treat"ic just what they put into it. If u iev -anted to make their life seem £«,% thto Tl" ?U - y aU - d , illdolel,t «**«»* ™e lav ™f • tlmC ' llle sccrpt of longevity lay not m years, but in keeping L ... aehvc interest in life. Ma, y ff L m knew (he famous lines iu B Jrbfs TcsWe live m deeds, not years; j„ thoughts not breaths; a ' In feelings, not in figures on a dial. —A Scientific Basis,— This truth had a scientific as well ns a

j moral basis. In his 'Principles of Psychology' Herbert Spencer said: "How age I determines quantitative variations in comj pound relations of sequence is a matter I of common remark. Probably these are in I parts due to differences in size and eonI eoniitant differences in the rhythm of the | functions—vital and locomotive. It requires a greater number of a child's movej ments than a man's movements to meaxi ure a day. But that the change in the I estimation of intervals is not wholly thus caused is manifest from the, fact that after maturity is reached they, or at any rate ' the longer ones, continue to undergo a, seeming abbreviation. Months to the old man appear no longer than weeks to Ihe youtig man. : 'Whatever exalts the', vital activities, and so' makes mental impressions stronger, exaggerates the conceptions of duration." ( '.'—Keep Young..and Keep Going.— Therefore he said ti> all healthy sexagenarians: "Keep your vital activities stiinu- ! lated by service to your Jellow-men, and ; you will keep young. Ho not. lose your i interest in life." | . The man's not old who plucks a bloom, | And halts, to hear a song. : And keep going. For, as Lord Bacon had : said: "He that' is in earnest pursuit is [like -one that is 'wounded, iit hot blood, j who, for-a time scarce feels the hurt, ! and therefore a mind fixed and bent upon' j somewhat that is good doth avert the I dolors of death."