with significance and charm; there are no pretences--there are
preferences, prejudices if you will; but there is tolerance and
sympathy, and a desire to see the point of view of others. The
effect of such an atmosphere is to set one wondering how one has
contrived to miss the sense of so much that is beautiful and
interesting in life, and sends one away longing to perceive more,
and determined if possible to interpret life more truly and more
graciously.






X

FEARS OF AGE





And then age creeps on; and that brings fears of its own, and fears
that are all the more intolerable because they are not definite
fears at all, merely a loss of nervous vigour, which attaches itself
to the most trivial detail and magnifies it into an insuperable
difficulty. A friend of mine who was growing old once confided to me
that foreign travel, which used to be such a delight to him, was now
getting burdensome. "It is all right when I have once started," he
said, "but for days before I am the prey of all kinds of