Senescence : the last half of life / by G. Stanley Hall.

  • Hall, G. Stanley (Granville Stanley), 1844-1924.
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Senescence : the last half of life / by G. Stanley Hall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    him indulge between the courses of a long public dinner, in the intervals of which he would converse with all his old sprightliness and vigor and at the close make the best speech of the occasion. There wa§ no record of even midday sleeps with the naturalist above de¬ scribed. He usually did his best work in the forenoon but occasionally, even in the last years of his life, worked till late at night and resumed early in the morning, doing this for some days as with a kind of afflatus. He also kept up an active interest in public affairs until his increasing illness compelled him to narrow down his interests more and more, so that toward the end they seemed to center entirely in himself. xA man of eighty ceased manual work at fifty and had a marked intellectual renaissance and became an author. He has come to realize the limitations of doctors and, although he employs them, is his own ultimate judge in all matters pertaining to his health. He has with¬ drawn from the influence of the clergy. “My science and reason say that there is no hereafter while my faith says that there is but I do not give myself any trouble about their quarrel for it will all be decided soon enough;” “I am more disposed to take the far view of things and try to estimate wider relations than for¬ merly/’ “I feel that my duty is to the race and to humanity rather than to any section of it.” He reads science and occasionally a good story, although the latter “must have some interest besides that of love.” “I formerly was fond of hunting and fishing but the killing instinct has faded with age, as it does with most people; but the forest and field, the sea and land, are beautiful beyond compare and their infinitely varied forms are more bewitching than ever.” Everyone, he thinks, should have some Bohemia into which he should retreat when overtaken by age and has leisure, and his has been genealogy, mainly getting acquainted with his own an-