day--their careers were generally brief. Superannuation came early. In
the latter part of the last century and the first half of this, men
were called old whom we should regard as in the prime of life. When
the friends of Washington were first pressing the Presidency upon him
in 1788, he urged his "advanced age" as an imperative reason for
declining it: he was fifty-six years old. When Ninian Edwards was a
candidate for Governor of Illinois in 1826, he was only fifty-one, and
yet he considered it necessary in his published addresses to refer to
the charge that he was too old for the place, and, while admitting the
fact that he was no longer young, to urge in extenuation that there
are some old things,--like old whisky, old bacon, and old friends,--
which are not without their merits. Even so late as 1848, we find a
remarkable letter from Mr. Lincoln, who was then in Congress, bearing
upon the same point. His partner, William H. Herndon, had written him
a letter, complaining that the old men in Sangamon County were
unwilling to let the young ones have any opportunity to distinguish
themselves. To this Lincoln answered in his usual tone of grave
kindness: "The subject of your letter is exceedingly painful to me;
and I cannot but think there is some mistake in your impression of the
motives of the old men. I suppose I am now one of the old men, and I
declare on my veracity, which I think is good with you, that nothing
could afford me more satisfaction than to learn that you and others of
my young friends at home were doing battle in the contest and
endearing themselves to the people and taking a stand far above any I
have ever been able to reach in their admiration. I cannot conceive
that other old men feel differently. Of course, I cannot demonstrate
what I say; but I was young once, and I am sure I was never
ungenerously thrust back." The man who thus counseled petulant youth
with the experienced calmness of age was thirty-nine years old. A
state of society where one could at that age call himself or be called