misstatements, but I was not in a position to contradict them. Next
the General was a courteous, weary old gentleman, who sate with his
finger-tips pressed together, smiling and nodding at intervals.
Half-an-hour later we were lighting our candles. The General strode
fiercely up to bed, leaving a company of yawning and dispirited men
behind. The old gentleman came up to me and, as he took a light,
said with an inclination of his head in the direction of the
parting figure, "The poor General is a good deal misinformed. I
didn't choose to say anything, but I know something about the
subject, because I was private secretary to the Secretary for War."

That was the right attitude, I thought, for the gentlemanly
philosopher; and I have learnt from my old friend the lesson not to
choose to say anything if a turbulent and pompous person lays down
the law on subjects with which I happen to be acquainted.

Again, there is another gain that results from advancing years. I
think it is true that there were sharper ecstasies in youth, keener
perceptions, more passionate thrills; but then the mind also dipped
more swiftly and helplessly into discouragement, dreariness, and
despair. I do not think that life is so rapturous, but it certainly
is vastly more interesting. When I was young there were an
abundance of things about which I did not care. I was all for
poetry and art; I found history tedious, science tiresome, politics
insupportable. Now I may thankfully say it is wholly different. The
time of youth was the opening to me of many doors of life.
Sometimes a door opened upon a mysterious and wonderful place, an
enchanted forest, a solemn avenue, a sleeping glade; often, too, it
opened into some dusty work-a-day place, full of busy forms bent
over intolerable tasks, whizzing wheels, dark gleaming machinery,