THE Rev. Richard D. Spellman of Fort Wayne, one of the oldest and most widely known Methodist ministers in Indiana, being in his ninety-first year, demonstrated his stoicism in an unusual manner a few days ago. He had to undergo an operation for appendicitis. As he was being taken to the hospital he said: "It's a pity that I've carried this useless thing around with me for nearly a century to have it bother me now." Before the operation he said to his surgeon, Dr. C. B. Stemen: 'You will find no lager beer, whisky, or tobacco smoke in this old body of mine, and I'm not afraid of the result." He went under the anesthetic humming a Methodist revival tune. He is recovering.

66

AUNT LARRISSA 102 YEARS OLD.

Miss Shailer tells her friends never to fret or worry. AUNT Larrissa Shailer of Hamburg, the oldest woman in Connecticut and perhaps in New England, will be 102 years old tomorrow. Her birthday party will be held on Monday because she wouldn't permit any social recognition of the day on Sunday. She said today:

Don't fret and worry and don't have anything to do with doctors. I never did and you can see the result. And then, too, you might say, 'Don't get married.': With a little laugh the old lady added: "Not but what I might have been. I don't say I have not had offers."

Miss Shailer was born up among the Haddam hills. She is a direct descendant of the original settlers of that town. She is a great Bible reader and has read the entire book from cover to cover some ten times. Daily she goes through more exercise than half the women in the village in which she lives. Hardly of the average height, always gowned in black and with a lace cap partially covering her silvery hair, Aunt Larrissa looks as though she had just stepped out from one of the old colonial pictures that hang upon her parlor walls.

ONE-HUNDRED-YEAR CLUB.

A FEW years ago the decease of a lady 103 years of age was noted in the newspapers of this city. Such an event naturally caused comment by readers, but in years to come it is held by scientific men that centenarians are apt to be plentiful upon the earth, because people will have acquired a more correct rule of daily living. At the present time the problem of how to prolong human life is receiving more attention and study in educated circles than ever before.

I HAVE said in my excess that no parents had any right to a baby if they could not provide the little one with at least one grandma. This may be taking an exaggerated view of what is generally admitted to be a deplorable state of things. A grandmotherless child misses half the sweetness of childhood.

As I enter my neighbor's house I envy not her jewels and cut-glass, her plate and pictures; but when I see, sitting in peaceful serenity, my neighbor's mother, then my heart owns a pang, and I feel that fate has dealt hardly with me. There is nothing that so lends light and sweetness to a home as an aged woman, loving and beloved. To such a one age is robbed of half its terrors. The afterglow of life is but a reflection of the golden dawn of eternity.

MADAME Swetchine, the Russian author, wrote a treatise on old age in which she said some strong things, as: Misfortune discovers to youth the nothingness of life; it reveals to age the happiness of heaven."

Age no longer moulds the bronze, or rough-hews the marble; but it perfects, it finishes, it does that patient and assiduous work which through life is the justification of God's law."

'Old age is the majestic and imposing dome of human life."

"Old age is not denied fertility; while the tree lives it produces leafage, and, in default of fruit, yields shelter and shade."

OF JAMES MCCOSH.

YOUNG to the end through sympathy with youth.

Robert Bridges.

STEPS TO HAPPINESS.

ACCEPT your limitations.

Seize your opportunity.

Enjoy the good of the hour.

Improve the bad, and, if you can't, let it drop.

WHEN a fellow begins to find out the rut he's in," remarks that young philosopher, Chimmie Fadden, "it's up to him for him to climb out. It he don't get a move on him then, the first thing he knows, de rut is so deep. he can't climb out, nohow; and dat queers his nerves."

It was Tennyson's good fortune not only to reach a greater age than any other poet of his country, but also to sustain the excellence of his verse for a longer period.

Wordsworth, indeed, lived and wrote up to old age, and in him, as in Tennyson, we have the contemplative humor, the balance of mind swaying occasionally between cheerfulness and dejection.

The weight of more than fourscore years depressed none of Tennyson's interest in literature or art, in political or philosophic questions; nor did it slacken his enjoyment of humorous observations or anecdote.

FIVE of Walter Savage Landor's dialogues in his "Imaginary Conversations," were produced between his eighty-eighth and eighty-ninth years.

Lord Brougham wrote more than one work after he was eighty-three; at eighty-eight he talked as well as ever on public events at home and abroad.

Sir Harry Verney at ninety years ran a race with a number of men and came off the victor.