It is a strange life to lead in this pleasureful world; and if when it is over I were condemned to live again, coming like Er the Armenian to that meadow where the lots are thrown down for each to choose his own, I am already decided what character I should elect to play. I should neither cast myself for a protagonist's part nor again for that of a dumb actor in those backgrounds I know too well; but just for a plain manly character, strong to face all fortunes and rich in troops of friends. There should be no more evasion or dreary wrestling of mind with body; but life should move to a restrained harmony, and no elusive wind should carry half the music away. As for what remains of this present dispensation, I shall know how to endure, trusting that the years may fade finely, like the figures in an old tapestry, and that the end may come to me as to the old gentleman in Hans Christian Andersen's story of the Old House. And I have this advantage over other men, that while they have the whole cornucopia to lose, I can but be deprived of the dregs in its pointed end. For in what can there be further punishment? On others, men of happy pasts, dismay may fall as the ways are darkened before them. But surely I shall be of good cheer as I come into the land of the fierce old robber Age; for, stripped long since by a more subtle and insatiate despoiler, I shall possess nothing of worth to draw his covetousness upon me. So many joys did my very youth renounce; so many pleasures the Harpies swept from my place at the spread board of life; such gags and fetters held me while others danced and sang, that I was the sad familiar of evil fortune before my companions were acquainted with her name. That leaden weight which brings others low, by a nice adjustment of the scales shall raise me for the first time to their equality. And then, as one experienced in bereavements, of themselves they may seek my company; and I, so long the useless and estranged, may become at the close their helpful counsellor. If only that might be; if only upon the verge of night I might redeem by usefulness my lost unserviceable day. Then this grey life, so long sole and intrinsical to itself, should glow at last with some reflection of the sunset; once more I should know young ardours imagined lost and devotions miraculously born again.