New York, March 22, 1890.
YOU have talked so much of old age and gray hairs and thin locks,
so much about the past, that I feel sad. Now, I want to destroy the
impression that baldness is a sign of age. The very youngest people I
ever saw were bald.
Sometimes I think, and especially when I am at a meeting where they
have what they call reminiscences, that a world with death in it is a
mistake. What would you think of a man who built a railroad, knowing
that every passenger was to be killed--knowing that there was no escape?
What would you think of the cheerfulness of the passengers if every one
knew that at some station, the name of which had not been called out,
there was a hearse waiting for him; backed up there, horses fighting
flies, driver whistling, waiting for you? Is it not wonderful that the
passengers on that train really enjoy themselves? Is it not magnificent
that every one of them, under perpetual sentence of death, after all,
can dimple their cheeks with laughter; that we, every one doomed to
become dust, can yet meet around this table as full of joy as spring is
full of life, as full of hope as the heavens are full of stars?