CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

TO LIVE TO A HUNDRED.

That is what most people would like, if it could be easily managed. Allknow that they must throw off 'this mortal coil' some time, but thereare innumerable and plausible reasons why they wish to avoid throwingit off as long as possible. They have important affairs on hand whichrequire attention. They have children to educate and see out into theworld. They are interested in certain public movements with which thenewspapers are rife, and would like to see how these stirring eventsterminate. They are engaged in some important scientific investigationswhich they are anxious to complete. They have realised a small fortune,and would like to see it grow something larger, so that they might makea decent flourish with their bequests. And so on without end. They haveoften declared that the weather has become so bad that life is notworth having. But on second thoughts, when things are looking serious,they come to the conclusion that the weather may be endured, and thatthe world is not such a bad world after all. Dying, who speaks ofdying? The idea of such a thing is ridiculous.

There is a clever book of old date full of pictorial illustrationscalled the Dance of Death. Each picture represents a pleasantscene in social life, into which Death, in the form of a skeleton,impertinently intrudes himself, and beckons a particular individualto come away; which individual, considerably surprised and disgustedat the summons, is obliged to go off, very much against his will.The moral suggested is the total unexpectedness of the visit—theuncertainty of human life. Such books amuse people. They laugh atseeing a self-complacent person sitting at a table stuffing andenjoying himself with good things, and who, on chancing to looka little aside, perceives to his consternation a skeleton bowingrespectfully, and beckoning with its bony finger to walk off. He iswanted, and must march—not a moment to stay. The very glass justpoured out must be left untasted. Very droll, very suggestive suchpictures, only nobody is ever benefited by them. 'All men think allmen mortal but themselves,' says the poet. Men perhaps do not exactlythink so. But what comes pretty much to the same thing, they flatterthemselves they will have

BU KİTABI OKUMAK İÇİN ÜYE OLUN VEYA GİRİŞ YAPIN!

Sitemize Üyelik ÜCRETSİZDİR!