truths which Japan had first shown him. Three years after his experience there, a dingy, second-hand book-store in Florence had placed him in possession of Luigi Cornaro’s Discorsi della Vita Sobria. He read it with amazement. Here in his hand, written by a Venetian nobleman more than three hundred years before, at the age of eighty-three, was the text-book of the theories of life which he had accepted from the Japanese as new and untried except among this alien people! It gave him a start, and he journeyed to Turin, Berne, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, London, St. Petersburg, and even back to Boston, seeking to interest the famous physiologists in his discovery, which he believed was destined to exterminate disease and to transform those practising the medical profession into hygienic engineers.

Mr. Cartwright’s name and personality preserved him from a sanitarium, but his theories as to self-control, forethought, and fear-thought received ample opportunity for personal experiment. He was as tenacious as if his future depended upon the outcome. A good-natured indulgence here, and an incredulous sympathy there, gave him his first opportunities for demonstration. He not only drew upon his fortune, but freely contributed himself as a subject for experiment. It had been slow, but he had learned patience from the Japanese. Disbelief gradually changed into doubt, doubt into question, question into half-belief, and half-belief into conviction. Quietly, surely, his own faith was assimilated by those high in the physiological ranks, and almost against their will, and before they realized the importance of their concessions, he had forced them to prove him right by their own analyses.

The last five years had been a steady triumph. He had found his ideals, but he had not attained them. He knew what his life-work was, and had the gratification of counting among his friends and collaborators the highest authorities the world recognized. The habits of generations could not be changed in a moment—some of them could never be changed; but the ball had been started and was gaining in size with each revolution. It no longer needed his gentle, persuasive push; it had its own momentum now, and he found it only necessary to guide its advance and to watch its growth.

Uncle Peabody’s thoughts reverted to his work as he folded Helen’s letter and placed it again in his pocket, where he had so long carried it. He regretted having his labors interrupted just now, but he found himself keenly interested to watch Helen’s approaching evolution. His wagon was firmly hitched to this new star, and he had no notion of changing stars. So, with a murmured “Bless you, my children. May you live forever, and may I come to your funeral,” he sought the repose which the others had already found.