Many a man passes his youth in preparing misery for his age, and his age in repairing misconduct in his youth. * * * * * The old story says that the flowers you gather in Fairyland prove to be withered weeds on your return. * * * * * It is folly to be youthful unless you are young. * * * * * An old man who indulges in love-making had better derive his pleasure from his own sentiments, than from the hope that they will be reciprocated. * * * * * “Old men become frivolous,” once said to me Weir Mitchell, poet, physician, philosophic observer of life. Yes, frivolous and sense-bound. Youth is earnest and spiritual, because it is sentient of creative force. * * * * * It is with health as with money; we wait till our stock is diminishing before we give it careful attention. * * * * * A Chinese proverb says, it is easy enough to die, but difficult to die at the right time. Many a man has lived to destroy his own well-earned reputation or fortune. * * * * * The danger of shipwreck is less in mid-ocean than near shore. * * * * * Hurry to reap ruins the harvest. To garner the grain we must bide from the sowing till the seed-time. * * * * * Pleasure is an expenditure of stored force. We must save up in order to have a good time. Nature is a merciless usurer, and demands heavy interest on her advances. II. _Our Physical Surroundings._ Palpably the nearest to us of all our physical surroundings is our clothing. Philosophers do not agree whether man originally adopted some covering for his body out of the desire of warmth, the sense of modesty, or the love of decoration. Enough that at present all these motives are operative, and all are to be respected. The first purpose of clothing is to preserve the health by keeping out the cold. There is more in this than mere comfort. Warm clothing economizes nervous energy, which otherwise has to be expended on the extremities of the nerves to maintain the capillaries in activity. A man when comfortably warm can think more clearly than when he feels chilly. Mind and body are alike benumbed by extreme cold. Exposure to even a moderately low temperature is dangerous to the aged and the frail. Those who have studied the meteorology of health have established the maxim,――“Waves of cold are waves of death.” In his clothing the sensible man will conform to the customs and station of society in which he moves. He will leave to his tailor the cut of his coat. It is a sign of greater weakness to affect a fashion of one’s own than to follow that of others. He will not be without a dress suit in civilized lands, and will not wear top boots in drawing rooms, as did in London a semi-celebrated American poet.