fairly well--not much inclined to exercise, to be sure, but able, if
occasion offered, to wield a tennis racket or a driver with a vigor and
accuracy that placed me well out of the duffer class.

Yes; I flattered myself that I looked like a boy of thirty, and I felt
like one--except for things to be hereinafter noted--and yet middle-aged
men called me "sir" and waited for me to sit down before doing so
themselves; and my contemporaries were accustomed to inquire jocularly
after my arteries. I was fifty! Another similar stretch of time and
there would be no I. Twenty years more--with ten years of physical
effectiveness if I were lucky! Thirty, and I would be useless to
everybody. Forty--I shuddered. Fifty, I would not be there. My room
would be vacant. Another face would be looking into the mirror.

Unexpectedly on this legitimate festival of my birth a profound
melancholy began to possess my spirit. I had lived. I had succeeded in
the eyes of my fellows and of the general public. I was married to a
charming woman. I had two marriageable daughters and a son who had
already entered on his career as a lawyer. I was prosperous. I had
amassed more than a comfortable fortune. And yet--

These things had all come, with a moderate amount of striving, as a
matter of course. Without them, undoubtedly I should be miserable; but
with them--with reputation, money, comfort, affection--was I really
happy? I was obliged to confess I was not. Some remark in Charles
Reade's Christie Johnstone came into my mind--not accurately, for I find
that I can no longer remember literally--to the effect that the only
happy man is he who, having from nothing achieved money, fame and power,
dies before discovering that they were not worth striving for.