"We who are old know that age is more than a disability. It is an intense and varied experience, almost beyond our capacity at times, but something to be carried high. If it is a long defeat it is also a victory...." The playwright and Jungian analyst Florida Scott-Maxwell was in her eighties when she wrote these lines, which begin one of the most extraordinary documents of any stage of life. With a candid introspection that recalls the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Maxwell assess the special predicament of old age: when one feels both cut off from the past and out of step with the present; when the body rebels at activity, but the mind becomes more passionate than ever.
But this predicament also affords her a panoramic vision of the issues that haunt us throughout our lives: how to reconcile our impulses toward good and evil; how to attain individuality in a mass society; and how to emerge--out of suffering, loss, and limitation--with something approaching wisdom.
Maxwell's incredible wisdom, humanity, and dignity make The Measure of My Days both timeless and timely an important contribution to the literature of aging, and of living.
Editorial Reviews
"Pure gold...Here is essential writing, profound, compassionate, and often gay....I have read it slowly, marking almost every page." --Anne Morrow Lindbergh
"A great, pulsating, sensitive, heartbreaking, loving, and joyous book which simply celebrates life." --Malcolm Boyd
"A passionate, disturbing book...It's to be hoped the young and passionate will find time to read it." --Harriet Van Horne
About the Author
Florida Pier Scott-Maxwell (1883-1979) was a writer, playwright, and suffragist who took up a career in analytical psychology in 1933, studying under Carl Jung in both Scotland and England.
