Page:The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858) Holmes.djvu/203

Rh —Why, the parenthesis, said I.—Parenthesis? said the Professor; what's that?—Why, look in the glass when you are disposed to laugh, and see if your mouth isn't framed in a couple of crescent lines,—so, my boy .—It's all nonsense, said the Professor; just look at my biceps;—and he began pulling off his coat to show me his arm. Be careful, said I; you can't bear exposure to the air, at your time of life, as you could once.—I will box with you, said the Professor, row with you, walk with you, ride with you, swim with you, or sit at table with you, for fifty dollars a side.—Pluck survives stamina, I answered.

The Professor went off a little out of humor. A few weeks afterwards he came in, looking very good-natured, and brought me a paper, which I have here, and from which I shall read you some portions, if you don't object. He had been thinking the matter over, he said,—had read Cicero "De Senectute," and made up his mind to meet old age half way. These were some of his reflections that he had written down; so here you have

is no doubt when old age begins. The human body is a furnace which keeps in blast threescore years and ten, more or less. It burns about three hundred pounds of carbon a year, (besides other fuel,) when in fair working order, according to a great