Edgar Lee Masters, in a little volume of clever poetic skits,[193] describes the dead in a country churchyard as sitting up, one after another, in their graves and belying their epitaphs. One says in substance, “They called me good and pure but I was a villain”; another, “They called me philanthropic and generous but I ground the faces of the poor and all my charities were to camouflage my selfishness and extortion”; and so on through a long list of rectifications, showing that while men generally follow the precept of saying nothing but good of the dead there may be, after all, at the bottom of the soul a certain impulse to have all the worst in us known. But this is not true of modern life, if it ever was so in the past. Some of our respondents specified temptations to overeat, to under-exercise, to take life too easy or to be too tardy in throwing off responsibilities, to read or think too much, to be censorious and intolerant, irritable, to resent the cocky infallibility of the young, the excessive urge to speed up, the danger of getting cranky, of brooding; and a few speak vaguely of temptations of the flesh. Nearly all say that they are less prone to yield to temptations than in middle life. It is perhaps from this standpoint that we see most clearly the danger to which the old are subjected in the progressive loss of self-knowledge. It is very hard for any but the strongest mentalities to realize the changes that age brings, to adjust to, feel at home in, and come to terms consciously with it, so that most would probably be surprised if they knew how clearly those closest to them understood their weaknesses, tolerated their idiosyncrasies, and made allowances for their failures. Self-control, poise, a calm, judicial state of mind even with regard to things that concern us most deeply, are among the chief, if also among the rarest, virtues of senescence. Everyone carries with him to the grave many a secret that it is well for him and for the world is buried with him; and the impulse to be known even by God Himself exactly as we are, although it has so many expressions in prayers and religious formulæ, lacks in our day, we must conclude, any real depth of sincerity. _What duties do you feel that you still owe either to those about you or to the world?_