Nevertheless, though like all boys I had been forced to discard my childish dreams before I had really finished with them, the lovely melodies of the flute-player served to enrich my latter years at school with much of the old enchantment. Often enough he would play to me at night during preparation, and I would spend my time in trying to set words to his tunes instead of doing my lessons. It was then that I regretted the lost years that had dulled my ear and prevented me from winning the inmost magic of his song, compared with which my verses seemed but the shadow of a shadow. Yet I saw that he was content with my efforts, and gradually made the discovery that while great achievement is granted to the fortunate, it is the fine effort that justifies a man to himself. What did it matter whether my songs were good or bad? They were the highest expression I could find for the rapture of beauty that had filled my heart as a child when I had been gifted to see life with clean and truthful eyes. For the songs the flute-player played to me were the great dreams of my childhood, the dreams that a wise man prolongs to the day of his death. I do not hear him often now, for I have learnt my lesson, and though my hands tremble and my ear deceives me, I am by way of being a flute-player myself. This article, it is clear, is a child’s dream, and so have been, and will be, I hope, all the articles I shall ever write. What else should we write about? We have learnt a few long words since we grew up, and a few crimes, but no new virtues. That is why I like to get back to the nursery floor, and play with the old toys and think the old thoughts. We knew intuitively then a number of beautiful truths that circumstance appears to deny now, and we grown men are the poorer in consequence. It is folly to find life ugly when the flute lies within our reach and we can pipe ourselves back to the world of beauty with a song made of an old dream.