“All men carry seeds of all distempers through life latent and die without developing them.” But if we are enfeebled by any cause some of these sleeping seeds start and open. At fifty we lose headache and with every year liability to certain forms of disease declines. Now one success more or less signifies nothing because reputation is made. Success signifies much to a client but nothing to the old lawyer. Again, another felicity of old age is that it has found expression. Things that seethe in us have been born, so that the throes and tempests subside. “One by one, day by day, he learns to cast his wishes into facts.” We set our house in order, classify, finish what is begun, close up gaps, make our wills, clear our titles, and reconcile enemies. Thus there is a proportion between the designs of man and the length of his life. In February, 1825, Emerson called on John Adams, who was nearly 90, just as his son had been elected President at the age of 58, nearly the same as that of Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. Oliver Wendell Holmes[93] discourses in his clever, self-conscious, and desultory way upon old age, concerning which he says many smart, studied, and even quotable things that add, however, no new standpoint or idea. He personifies old age, for example, as first calling on the professor and leaving his card, that is, a mark between the eyebrows; calling again more urgently; and at last, when he is not let in, breaking in at the front door. He seems to feel that death is a sort of disgrace and ignominy and compares the child shedding his milk teeth with the old man shedding his permanent ones. He would divide life into fifteen stages, each of which has its youth and old age. As we enter each stage we do so with the same ingenuous simplicity. Nature gets us out of youth into manhood as old sea captains used to shanghai sailors. Habits mark old age but we should begin new things and even take up new studies. He gives an imaginary newspaper report of the address of Cato on Old Age, and several times lapses into poetry. He feels that he has less time for anything he wants to do, realizes neglected and postponed privileges, tells of the great charm he feels in rowing on the Charles, and gives us all the data for estimating that he is very proficient in the exercise. He praises walking but says saddle leather is preferable, though more costly. He is very grateful that he does not need eyeglasses.