In these returns there is no vestige of tragic remorse of either the old classic or theological kind, although only one disclaimed every trace of regret for anything in the past. This is not because he had not made mistakes but because he believed, as nearly all did, that regrets were vain. Most admitted serious errors both of omission and commission, while many specified waste of time and energy, misdirection, bad advice, lack of method, continuity, and system. One bitterly regretted her choice of calling, which had made her daily work a “crucifixion.” Several regretted that they had not been more generous and deplored the too absorbing efforts they had made for acquisition. Others deplored their training as children, the effects of which it had taken years to overcome; while still others regretted the way in which they had brought up their own children. Some thought they had done too little for or given too little attention to their families. Some had made special efforts to cultivate forgetfulness of faults and especially rankling injustices they had suffered from others. One felt that he had come into the world not by his own will but as an accident of sexual passion and therefore felt himself under no obligations to his parents and not responsible for his life or its conduct. Some had even learned to rejoice in their mistakes because of the wisdom that had thus been taught them. Not a few took occasion to reflect upon their satisfactions, which offset the dissatisfaction with what life had brought. Many reproached themselves that they had not done more, worked harder, had more to show, etc. Other old people have a dull and sometimes corroding sense of sexual errors in their past that may have impaired the quality of all their family relations and even the constitution of their children. Some are prone to turn to thoughts of specific instances of outrageous injustice, so that their most poignant regret is that they have never been able to wreak vengeance upon those who had wronged them. Many specified the long hardships to which they had been subjected by too strict religious and moral regimen and blamed their parents for not giving them instruction betimes during the stage of pubertal ferment. A few had been through the crisis of business failure, made mistaken alliances, or been mismated, or regretted that they had not married. Not infrequent is the regret of having been a spendthrift, wasted a patrimony; and still more frequent are the mentions of injuries to health by unhygienic habits. A few chiefly deplored the fact of not being able to believe what they felt they should. Other few deplored the dullness and languor of their emotional zests and that they take less interest in things than formerly. Most who make decided breaks in middle life do not seem to regret them, although more regret a series of circumnutations among various occupations before they found the right one.