Show tor for sw raw paper HOW TO KEEP YOUNG by bv frank G Oa carpenter menter 1893 OW TO KEEP young for the past ten years I 1 have been getting adv i c e from the famous old people of the world upon this subject I 1 interviewed george bancroft upon it when he was in his bis nineties and he then told me could ride thirty miles a day without tiring I 1 chatted with W W corcoran as to this when he was eighty nine and president harrisons father in law dr scott gave roe me his receipt for a working old age when he was ninety two know a dozen men who have past their three sake score and ten and who are fanous in public lite life who are still doing good work and governor gear the newly elected senator irom from iowa is hale and hearty at seventy five I 1 interviewed cassius M clay when he was over eighty about three years ago upon this sub subject jeci and since that time he has married a young wife and has begun another exi tance li hung chang told me last summer how he divided his work and sleep in order to maintain the wonderful vitality which he showed at seventy four and I 1 have today a number of letters and interviews with noted depto and octogenarians upon this suh sub hect these letters have been accumulating lating for some time they are written by men and women women who have long since passed their three score and ten and still kill their handwriting shows that they have not lost their vigor and their words sparkle with the vitality of youth the first I 1 give is is from susan B anthony thaia she is now seventy five but her blue eyes are full ot of life and her voice is a as strong as it was when she made her first public speech away back in in 1847 nearly half a century a ago tt I 1 sent her a list of questions upon the e subject of perpetual youth about a year ago and here are her answers dated april 28 abe course of life for a young woman to lead in order that she may reach a working old age and make the most oi of herself is precisely the course of life that a young man should pursue for the same purpose and this has been so well indicated by phillips brooks that I 1 can do no better than to quote his own words as follows 11 to fo be at work to do things for the world to turn the currents of the things about us at our will to make our exist ence a positive element even though it be no bigger than a grain of sand in the great system where we live this alone is to live long lived people who keep up their work to the last are the people who have found out the secret namely that congenial work is the joy of life oneff one of my questions was as to how miss anthony kept her wonderful health and working power her reply to this is as follows A human being is born to think to will to booy a liberty bounded only by respect tor abr the equal liberty for fon others to think ones self ioto into the realm of perfect freedom oi of thought to possess and enjoy such liberty ot of social action as is bounded only by the same liberty in others and to will with all ones power that each units political liberty shall be conceded and officially recognized by each to tread the natural path ot human development hence I 1 can but attribute my own extraordinary health and working powers to the tact fact that I 1 have chosen such a course As machinery in action lasts longer than machinery lying idle so a body and soul in active exercise escapes the cor rodine rust of physical and mental laziness which prematurely cuts off so many lives it I 1 am able to do the work of daily traveling and lecturing at ovir over three score years and ten I 1 be lieve it to be simply because I 1 have always worked and loved work As to my habit of life it will be plain from what I 1 have just said that it has been impossible for me to have fixed rules for fo eating resting resting sleeping etc the only advice I 1 could give a young youn person on this point would be live as simply as you can eat what you find agrees with your constitution when you can get it sleep whenever you are sleepy and think as little of these details a as possible you asked whether marria marriage e is conducive to longevin longevity lt and should women marry young ziss miss Antho anthonys letter continues now the answers to this are plainly thit that depends upon the specific case of marriage and upon what you yog mean by young in the orient a woman is considered old enough to marry at twelve in the occident the average are age lor for marriage age ranges from twenty to twenty eight I 1 should consider twenty five a good age for a woman to marry as by that time she has arrived at a reasoning stage and is therefore in condition to make an intelligent tell igent choice among men A marriage at this age largely because it is likely to be made with some intelligence is more conducive to longevity than a child marriage then if it be a marriage with a husband who highly respects his cifes individuality who treats her in all particulars as he himself would wish to be treated were he a woman of fine spirit of independent thought and of self respecting will 1 I should say such a marriage is conducive to longevity and is an ideal human relation in closing miss anthony writes the following bowing to as to the preservation of mental activity intellectual health is best preserved by exercise of the intellect intel inteli lct ct intellectual decay is due to an inactivity of the mind the worrying people of the world ate are rarely found among the workers for one of the lessons a worker learns is to do the best possible at every moment and to trust time to finish what cannot then be consummated worry belongs to those who have no faith and who assume to great ity it belongs to the people who feel that all the work of the world can only be well done by themselves and anci that they have neither time nor strength to do it all the true thinker understands that nature creates thousands of workers for every work and her faith in this stand i ing na host pre preserves 81 erves her from the worry that is born 0 of f narrow narrowness nest and egoism signed SUSAN B ANTHONY of f the same age as susan B an thoney and of equal vitality is mrs lousia drew who now at seventy five has all the vigor of youth for the past ast sixty seven years she has been delighting fighting audiences in this country and europe with her geni genius usand and her comedy acting has laughed more fat upon the people of the united states than the humors of bill nye or josh billings mrs drew may almost be said to be in her prime today for thirty years she was the manager of a theater and her letter shows that her life has been comparatively ively free from the ills which ordinary flesh is heir to I 1 give it verbatim birmingham ala april 23 1894 my dear sir you have put several questions to me which are difficult tor for me to answer how can I 1 tell that what agrees with my constitution wilt will do so with others I 1 can only answer for myself and shall I 1 fear appear egotistical I 1 have always lived generously and have enjoyed my life many sorrows have overtaken my late years but have not crushed my spirits I 1 married very early in life at the age ae of sixteen but should not advise so early a marriage generally still I 1 did not have any family until I 1 was thirty years old and I 1 was consequently not harassed by the care of children when I 1 was very young I 1 know of no way of preserving health intellectual or physical except through the exercise ot 0 the faculties I 1 have never been afflicted with insomnia and therefore cannot prescribe a remedy for that in facts fact I 1 gave have been so singularly blessed with fine health that I 1 arn am scarcely a good subject for your purpose yours truly louism Loi reiA one of the great men of the episcopal 1 church is bishop thomas M clark who have been preaching the gospel lor for t the e last sixty years he 4 e gra graduated du at ed at yale college when andrew jackson was still in his first presidential term and he be was licensed to preach as a presbyterian clergyman before van buren got the presidency soon after this he dropped presbyterianism and became an episcopalian and he was made the bishop of rhode island more than forty years ago he has published a number of books and now at the age of eighty three he can outwork most of the young men about him here is what he writes providence R I 1 april i 1 1894 dear sir in reply to yours of the 3rd ard instant allow me to say that I 1 was born in newburyport mass on the ath of july 1812 and so far as I 1 know with the exception of a stiffness in the joints which prevents me ime from walking long distances I 1 am as strong and well as I 1 ever have been I 1 am able to keep all my appointments at home and abroad and to work with entire freedom in fact I 1 have done more visiting within the last six months than in any other half year of my I 1 te le now in reply to your questions let me say that in order to reach a working old age and making the most of himself and keeping up his work to the last a young man should take abundant physical exercise nutritious wholesome tood food and rational amusements he should cultivate all his mental powers to the best possible pos aible advantage while at the same time he should be careful not to overta gk his bis mind with the study of books or anything likely to impair his health ot of course he must avoid every habit and indulgence that tends to weaken his nervous force aud and leads a natural wholesome pure and temperate life the working power of the mind ought not to demolish with the approach of age and it is possible for us to do our beat work toward the close of our mortal existence 1 I attribute my own health which has i never been seriously impaired and my longevity very muan to the inheritance which has been transmitted to me by my ancestors I 1 am descended on my mothers side from the rev john wheelwright one of the earliest of the boston ministers who was banished irom the massachusetts colony for heresy about the year 1640 he lived to an extreme old age as most of his posterity i ty have done my own grandfather b bein e ng ninety three years old the first time he ever sent for a physician As to my own personal habits I 1 smoked tobacco faithfully for fifty years and then seven or ei eight years ago I 1 abandoned it altogether on the ground that I 1 did not care to be a slave of such a habit any longer I 1 have not been a total abstainer except for certain limited periods when I 1 thought that the ahe welfare of others required it I 1 have been accustomed to sleep as other people do and without giving much thought to it in fact a scrupulous re aard for sanitary rules and special atten uon tion to bodily health have never interested me very much in regard to marriage as being conducive to longevity and everything else tha is good 0 od and desirable I 1 think that every ade able bodied man who has the means of supporting a lemily family is under a moral obligation to marry as soon as possible after he has reached the age of twenty one it if he expects to live upon other veople people like a parasite he has no right to marry at all in order to preserve intellectual health a young man I 1 would say to an old man also should act and work like a reasonable being and alway have something on hand t to occupy and beneat and interest inte sest hima machine that lies idle for a series of years is destroyed by rust and it works in the same way with human beings whether they are young or old I 1 do not mean that a businessman business man should keep on going to his office or his shop every day and toil on as he has been accustomed to do until the end comes but there must be something to occupy the mind it we would keep from dying before our time As to insomnia I 1 go to bed every night at 12 and get up before eight next morning taking a short nap during the day if I 1 chave have the opportunity to do so I 1 often keep on writing until after midnight as I 1 am now doing but this does not interfere int erfer with my sleep ing I 1 have no trouble on that score 1 I have in fact no consciousness of old age and but for the impediment in walking I 1 should consider myself as young a man as I 1 ever was I 1 know of course that the end must be near but it does not seem to me any nearer than ahan it did fifty years ago I 1 have great reason to thank god for giving me such a serene and famous old age THOMAS M CLARK my next letter is from mr samuel smiles the author of self help and of a dozen other valuable works he also says that work is the only thing thine that keeps men young his letter is full of personal details about his habits and his work it is written in a firm hand it reads as follows kensington london june ath 1894 dear sir 1 I have to ask your pardon for not sooner replying to your letter of april loth it came to me through edinburgh scotland which I 1 left fifty six years ago since then I 1 have lived at leeds but principally in london where I 1 long acted as secretary of the southeastern railway company I 1 am well on in my eighty second year about twenty three years ago I 1 had a stroke of paralysis and should scarcely be living at present but havin having 9 a sound constitution and giving up all work for about five years I 1 happily re covered and only the other day I 1 sent the manuscript of a new book to the printers the reason I 1 had my stroke of paralysis is as follows after doing my secretarial ret arial work during the day I 1 went home at night and wrote the lives of 0 the engineers after that came self help and character the first successful book I 1 wrote was on the life of george stephenson I 1 had attained the age ot of forty five years when I 1 wrote that book the others followed toll owed while I 1 was writing character I 1 was also editing the work of my son A boy boys Is voyage round the world this his was more than any human brain could undergo then I 1 was stricken down lost the use of my right side lost my speech had what is called aphasia and then took my long rest when I 1 re covered I 1 proceeded to write other books most ot of which are known in america many of my books have been translated into european languages gua g es and also into asiatic as laras aras japan you ask me about my habits I 1 am never idle work is ane salvation ot of every human being my wife is alive and as happy as I 1 am I 1 should not have been as I 1 am without her we had two sons and three daughters one of the sweetest of the latter died but we have nevertheless twenty grand children and one of them is happily married we had our golden wedding in december last I 1 smoke moderately and take three qua quarters rt ers of a glass of whisky at night I 1 b by at the he advice of my doctor to induce induce sleep everything in moderation I 1 take two walks a day one in the forenoon another in the afternoon on the whole I 1 am very well evers yours faithfully S SMILES one of the most interesting of these unpublished letters was from honorable hugh mcculloch he was seventy six years old when secretary of the treasury and he be preserved his intellectual vigor to the last about a year ago he dictated a letter for me on youth and how to keep it he was not well at the time and mrs mcculloch wrote the letter lett erand and signed it in it she said mr mcculloch believes in the golden rule the young man who would grow old and still keep young should do CIO to I 1 others as he be would be done by he should be pure in soul and body and be temperate in eating and drinking he believes that tobacco and ardent spirits are injurious and he would ad vise the young to let them hem alone H he should devote himself to business but he should not neglect his family he should should marry as soon as he is able to keep house and when he finds the woman whom he can sincerely sincerely sin cerel love you ask as to insomnia mr Ms culloch has found that horseback riding has done a great deal for him hee he hh |