Oliver Wendell Holmes, in one of his admirable breakfast table talks, said for the encouragement of those who have passed the meridian of life, that he found that he could learn anything twice as easily as in his earlier days, the reason being that age had brought him increased power of concentration. In consequence, he was not afraid to attack a new study, and recounts having taken up a difficult language when past sixty, with entire success. He likewise recites a popular story of a young New England farmer, who refused to plant apple trees on the score that he would not live to eat the fruit of them. The young man's grandfather, hearing the remark, planted the orchard himself and lived to drink cider from it.

It is an old saying, as wise as it is trite, that a man is never too old to learn. The ability to acquire knowledge, in whatever realm his mind may lead him, ends only when a man closes the account with this life. When Thomas Henry Huxley died in 1898 he was past seventy-three - not an old man, by any means. His life had been one of patient, arduous investigation, solid, rational, scientific teaching, and brilliant and original writings. He was just passing his sixtieth year when he was convinced that he had made a blunder in not mastering the old Greek language in his earlier years. Although he was one of the busiest scientific scholars in the world his strong will power enabled him to learn the tongue of Homer thoroughly. While Huxley was performing this serious task none of the new propositions of interest to the scientific world escaped his thoughtful attention.

I have elsewhere made note of the fact that the Rev. Dr. Eobie, at the age of eighty-three, was a student in the theological department of Harvard University during the summer of 1904. With him was the distinguished Dr. Leonard Woolsey Bacon, seventy-four years old. The latter had been a popular preacher, writer, and lecturer for fifty years, yet he wanted the assistance of Harvard in his purpose to make further investigation of certain theological questions, and therefore he placed himself under the instruction of competent professors during the summer months of that year. Entering the University at the same time and for the same purpose, were two other ministers each over sixty years old.

It has been affirmed that men and women who have done nothing great before the age of fifty or sixty, will never do it. This may be the rule, but there are some notable exceptions. As time goes on they have developed a new courage and have accomplished much in their maturer years.

I am writing a portion of this and other chapters of Masters of Old Age in August, 1904, in the "Log Cabin" on the high, green-robed, and wooded banks of Fox River near Appleton, Wisconsin. It is the summer home of Mr. Alexander J. Reid, editor of the Appleton Daily Post, and formerly United States Consul to Dublin, Ireland. Clustering around this quiet, restful home, so charming in its natural surroundings, are hallowed associations of the past, and one is touched with a feeling, almost sacred, by the many tender memorials of love.

Here I have had the rare pleasure of meeting one of the most remarkable of our Wisconsin women - Mrs. Theodore Conkey, mother-in-law of Mr. Reid. Her life affords an interesting and beautiful illustration of the many new, worthy, and helpful things which can be done during the period of old age. Hers is a life that is constantly reaching out towards something. Although her years have been variously clouded, she makes the most and best of the present and has bright visions of the future. To her activity is life.

Mrs. Conkey is eighty-two, and only recently she resumed her pencil drawing which had been discontinued for nearly forty years. Her later achievements have not only afforded her much congenial occupation, but they have been the source of much delight to her family and friends, and by many competent critics they are considered remarkable. Moreover, Mrs. Conkey has still more recently become interested as a worker in another branch of art. For some time she has been taking lessons in water colors, and has shown herself to be an exceedingly apt pupil - some of her creations, indeed, being lovely companions for her best pencillings.

In the spring and summer time, Mrs. Conkey's morning hours are spent in pleasurable activity among the plants and flowers in her garden, for which she has a great fondness, and the afternoons are devoted to reading and drawing. She retains the grace and walk - although of course, not the strength and endurance - of a young girl. Her activity and achievements are, however, not altogether surprising in a woman who has had all the experience of Wisconsin pioneer life, and who had the resolution to join and remain with her husband, who was an officer in the Third Wisconsin Cavalry, during two campaigns of the Civil War.

Dr. Hemphill of Portsmouth, Ohio, a fine type of the old school physician, was in his eightieth year when he determined to take up the study of Hebrew. His youthful ardor and strong mentality well equipped him for the difficult task, and in due course of time he had acquired a practical knowledge of the language.

The career of Mrs. Abrey Kamoo who died in Boston a year ago, is interesting. She was born in Tunis, North Africa, in 1815, and was the daughter of a triplet, a merchant of high social prominence in Tunis. She was a triplet herself, and during her married life of five years she twice gave birth to triplets. Commodore Perry, of Lake Erie fame, brought her to this country, after which she was married to Dr. Enrique Kamoo, a graduate of the Uni versity of Cairo. They made their home in New Orleans, where the doctor died immediately preceding the Civil War.

Mrs. Kamoo's sympathies were with the Union, and in 1862, disguised as a man, she made her way through the Southern camps to the Northern forces and enlisted as a drummer, under the name of Tommy Kamoo. A year later, when it became known that she was a woman, she was transferred to the hospital department, where she served as a nurse to the end of the war.