hey are the best
walking women, and also those who, with the Parisiennes, know best how
to put on their dresses.

CHAPTER XX

WOMEN LIVE LONGER THAN MEN

Heller, who has collected the greatest number of instances of extreme
long life, found 1,000 persons who lived from 100 to 110, 60 from 110 to
120, 30 from 120 to 130, 15 from 130 to 140, 6 from 140 to 150, and one
who lived to be 169 years of age.

French writes that from 1881 to 1890, in Massachusetts, there were 203
deaths of persons past the age of 100. Of these 153 were women and 50
were men. Let us add that the parts of the world which have supplied, in
proportion to their population, the greatest number of centenarians, are
New England, Scotland, and Brittany.

All these centenarians, without exception, have been found among the
humbler classes, and most of them among peasants--that is to say, among
the workers of the community who lead quiet, regular, and busy lives.

It is worthy of note that just those very principles which were laid
down by the Founder of the Christian religion as best for the eternal
welfare of the soul have been proved by the passing years to be best for
the body also.

It is not those who are clad in purple and fine linen and fare
sumptuously every day who are strong enough to climb to the clear
heights of a great age. Neither titles nor wealth keep the feet from
wearying of the uphill path of life.

They who would have their days long in the land must honour their great
mother, Nature. They must walk in her ways. Nature does not rejoice in
sluggards, therefore they must work, and the more steadily they work the
longer they live.

Men of thought have always been distinguished for their age. Solon,
Sophocles, Pindar, Anacreon, and Xenophon were octogenarians. Kant,
Buffon, Goethe, Fontenelle, and Newton were over eighty. Michael Angelo
and Titian were eighty-nine and ninety-nine respectively. Harvey, the
discoverer of the circulation of the blood, lived to be eighty.

Victor Hugo was over eighty. Gladstone, who worked every minute of his
life, always in search of new subjects to master, and who took his
recreation in bodily work--gardening, cutting down his trees--died at
eighty-eight.

Sidney Cooper, the English animal painter, whose work of last year will
be exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, this year, died at
ninety-nine, practically with his brushes in his hands.

The preponderance of females over males in