THE WORLD’S GOVERNORS.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1016, 27 September 1877, Page 3

THE WORLD’S GOVERNORS.

The “ Pall Mall Gazette” has an interesting article, showing that the world is governed in all the highest realms of its life, in literature, and politics, and ecclesiastical affairs, by old men. The world itself is juvenescent —the fire and glow of youth are in all its veins. Never had it more inventiveness and ardour - , never was it less inclined to be bound by tradition and precedent, than to-day. And these are the qualities of youth ; and yet it is led in every path by men of extreme age. Lord Beaconsfield, who governs England, is 72 years old ; Mr Gladstone, his great rival, is 68. Bismarck is 62 years old ; the Emperor William is 80, as also was M. Thiers; the President of the French Republic is 69; Prince Gortscbakoff is 79. The great men in literature and the Church are equally venerable. Carlyle is 81, Tennyson 67, Longfellow 71, the Pope 85, Pusey and Newman each 77. England was never so Liberal as to-day, when it is ruled by grey hairs; and it was never so Conservative as when its Prime Minister was Pitt, a young man of 26 ; and the leader of the Opposition, Fox, about the same age. “ The history of heroes,” says Disraeli, “ was once the history of youth but it is no longer. The heroes of the race to-day are a group of venerable, bald-headed, toothless, gouty Nestors. All this shows that it takes a very great deal of hard work to kill a man. No'one can play a great part in the world’s affairs to-day without a very large capacity for intense and sustained industry. A great statesman or author, or a great ecclesiastical leader, has to wade through illimitable seas of drudgery. And the fact that so many do it and survive, and keep their working power to extreme old age, proves that hard and intense work is friendly to long life. The probability is that thousands of men and women die indirectly from mere laziness. There has not been enough of effort and serious occupation in their lives to harden the brain, and make the nerves tough enough to carry the burden of years. Nature is kindly to the diligent; but the idle, like the wicked, do not live out half their days.