The organs of man are like the works of a clock. If they are not used, they rust; and when, after a period of rest, it is attempted to set them in motion again, the chances are that the human machine will work badly, or not at all.

Therefore, wind up your clock always and regularly, and it will keep going. This does not apply only to your bodily clock, but to your mental one as well.

Persons who work regularly, and, above all, in moderation, especially those who maintain the activity of their physical and mental faculties, live longer than those who abandon active life at the approach of old age.

Do not stop taking bodily exercise. Go on having your walk and your ride; go on working steadily; go on even having your little smoke, if you have always been used to it, without ever abusing it—in fact, if your constitution is good, forget that you are advancing in age; go on living exactly as you have always lived, only doing everything in more and more moderation. Busy people live much longer than idle ones. Sovereigns who lead a very active life live long.

See the Pope! Moltke, Bismarck, Disraeli, Carlyle, Victor Hugo, Gladstone, Ruskin, LittrÉ, Darwin, De Lesseps, Renan, Pasteur—all great workers—died nearly eighty or over eighty years of age.

It is not work, but overwork, that may kill; it is not smoking, but inveterate smoking, that hurts; it is not a little drinking that does any harm, but too much indulgence in drink which kills.

Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who died only a short time ago, was writing brilliant articles for the New York American only a few days before her death; maybe, she was writing one an hour before it.

Her death at the age of eighty-seven may furnish a moral lesson to those who desire a long life. She died in complete possession of her mental and physical faculties.

At eighty-five, Gladstone was felling trees in his garden and writing articles on Homer and theology as a rest from his political labours. At eighty-two, De Lesseps was riding three hours every day in the Bois de Boulogne. At ninety-eight, Sidney Cooper was exhibiting pictures at the Royal Academy.

Yes, so long as the human machine is kept well oiled and regularly wound up, it goes; and not only do active bodies and minds who go on working live long, but they live happily and die peacefully, and they also make happy all those who live with them.

It was a lovely sight to see De Lesseps ride and drive with a troop of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The youngest and most boisterous member of the party was the old gentleman, and all that band of joyous youngsters adored him.

The man of healthy body and active mind, who abandons work at fifty, even at sixty, prepares himself for a life of mere vegetation.

Let him stop remunerative work, if he does not find it congenial, and has enough or more than he wants to live upon, but let him immediately trace out for himself a programme of life that will enable him to keep his body and mind active, or let him look out for dyspepsia, gout, rheumatism, paralysis, stiffness of the joints, and the gradual loss of his mental faculties.

'I am sorry to be getting an old man,' once remarked Ferdinand de Lesseps, 'but what consoles me is the thought that there is no other way of living a long time.'

It is activity, it is work, that keeps you young, healthy, cheerful, and happy; it is work—thrice blessed work—that makes you feel that you are not a useless piece of furniture in this world, and makes you die with a smile on your face. Work, work again, work always!