Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-03-18
De Senectute
r. JUSTICE HOLMES, of the United
States Supreme Court, who recently


MI States Supreme Court, who recently
celebrated his eighty-first birthday
by working with keen relish from early morn
ing till dark at peculiarly difficult tangle Of
the law, is son of the renowned DR.. Oliver
Wendell Holmes, who lived to be eighty-fve,
and grandson of the Rev. Abiel Holmes, for
more than generation pastor Of the First
Church, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, who
survived four years beyond the Psalmist's
span From 1853 to 1922 these three golden
lives extend, linking together the great eras
Of our national history. Vigorous thinking,
simple living, goodly service, and human
kindness mark them all.
These virtues generally go with sturdy
length of days. Twenty -eight years earlier
than Mr.. Justice Holmes grandfather, was
born John Adams-second President OF the
United States. He lived nfnety-one years.
His son, John Quincy, lived eighty-one; his
grandson, Charles Francis Adams, seventy
nine; and his great grandson, Charles Fran
els the Second, eighty. All found time, amid
crowded careers, for extensive reading ana
authorship; all were men OF wide cultlva-
tion and although touched with the glacial
tradition of New England, they appear to
have been loved steadfastly enough by those
l.ho best knew them.
BENJAMIN Franklin-dear, companionable,
immortal Ben-came in with the early
eighteenth century and tarried nigh to its
going out. He was eighty-foQr at MS death;
and his son, William, who became Governor
of New Jersey, likewise attained e1ghty-four.
''My mother" Benjamin Franklin wrote, mad
an excellent constitution; she sucked all her
ten children. I never knew either my rather
or mother to have any sickness but that of
which they dy'd, he at eighty-nlne, and she
at eighty-five years of age"
Dr. Charles w. Eliot, President Emeritus
of Harvard, is still virile thinker at eighty
eight Thomas Hardy at eighty-two writes
poetry that is truly poetleal. V1scount Bryce,
one of the rare and mastery spirits of his
time, finished what some consider his great
est work not long before his recent death at
the age of eighty<four. Gladstone labored
on till eighty-nine, Robert Browning Till
seventy-seven, Charles Darwin till seventy
three, Goethe till eighty-three, Kant till nine
ty Plato till eighty.
The list might be carried on through col
umn. But youngsters all the way from fifty
to seventy as we'll as their elders, should
ponder what Cicero, most charming OF writer's
on old age, has said: For myself, l had
rather be an old man somewhat shorter
time than an old man BEFORE my time. The
course of life is fixed and nature permits of
it's being run in but one way; and to each
part of our life there is something especially
seasonable; so that the tenderness OF chill
dren, as we'll as the high spirit of youth, the
soberness of mature years, and the ripe Wis
dom of old age-all have certain natural
advantage which should be secured in its
proper season. Again, is it not fact
that the wisest man ever dies with the great
est cheerfulness, the most unwlse with the
least? Don't you think that the soul which
has the clearer and longer sight sees that
it is starting for better things while the soul
whose vision is DINNER does not see it?
Thus, my dear Scipio, my old age sets lightly
on me, and is not only unoppressive but even
graciOuS"