Old Age The Best

1912

There is only one thing we have to do, and that is to grow old. That is the due business of life; it is for that we are put in this world.

The art of living is nothing but the art of growing old.

Instead of looking upon old age as a wreck of youth, the pitiful remains of a once valuable life, we should regard it as the masterpiece of life, that for which all preceding stages were but trial essays and preparation.

When Fontanelle was asked what period of life he considered the most fortunate, he replied: "From sixty to eighty. At that age one's place is fixed. Ambition and desires have ceased to torment, and one reaps what he has sown. It is harvest time."

Whether you believe this or not depends upon the point of view you take as to the purpose of human life. If you think a human being is an animal, put in this world to get all the pleasure he can, then naturally you conceive old age to be a calamity. But if you hold that he is a soul, put here in a body in order to perfect and beautify his character, then you must see that old age, when the bodily fires have gone down, and nothing is left but the fine gold of the spirit, is best of all. — Dr. Frank Crane in Woman's World for November.

This optimistic view of mature age suggests the thought that the harvest time of life may be crowned with fruitage, and that the valley of the shadow may be entered without dread or regret.