A far-fetched simile, and one that will, doubtless, hardly bear examination. Morbid, too, perhaps, but then it is the privilege of youth to make “copy” of its grey hairs. It is only natural that our imagination should fly like a scout before us into the country where we must travel. Age is as real to us now as our youth will be to us when we are old. It is distant, unknown: romantic therefore. How will it come to us, we wonder, this trial which must make or break us? In what words will it address us, in what shape present itself? With what armour shall we be defended? Shall we pass petulantly, resentfully, with struggles, into middle-age? Shall we cry, as does a child in the nursery impotently over a broken toy? Shall we beat our hands against the barred gates of the enchanted garden? It is inconceivable that there should not be one such moment of rage and bitterness and of frustration. But will it be slow in passing? That is the question that we ask ourselves. Shall we find it difficult to shrug our shoulders, to say: “The wine is different, but it is still good.” We seek our answer in the companionship of age. Venerable, white-haired gentlemen who spend their afternoons asleep in the libraries of their clubs, are messengers to us from that far country. They know the geography of the road that we must travel. They have left much behind them on the road. They, too, knew once courage and danger and ambition. But it is not pity that we bring them for the loss of this rich merchandise. We do not contrast consciously their weariness with our vigour, our hope with their resignation, their weakness with our capacity. We come in a mood of humble curiosity; is there comfort, we ask them at that last tavern: Life is a bargain; you have lost much; does the exchange content you? And they tell us so little. They brag extravagantly of their youth, of their feats and gallantries and disasters. “We lived, and fought and suffered, and life was good.” But they overact the part. They are too hearty about it. We are what they were once, and we know it to be a far less ecstatic business than they would have us think. When they appeal in contrast to our sympathies, we feel that they are, on the whole, really rather enjoying themselves. After a certain age people seem to lose the power of self-criticism. They will not place their life as they have made it beside their life as they had hoped to make it. They pretend to be something they are not. Instead of finding themselves, they lose themselves.