I used to tell Heron, and others who came into my later life, that the happiest days I ever knew were the 'ten bob a week and all found' days of my handy-lad time. It was very likely true, I think; though really it is next door to impossible for any man to tell which period in his life has been the more happy; and especially is this so in the case of the type of man who finds more interest in the past than in the future. The other side of the road always will be the cleaner, the trees on the far side of the hill will always be the greener, for a great many of us. Any other time seems preferable before the present moment, to some folk; and to many, times past are in every sense superior to anything the future can have to offer. At all events I was fortunate in the matter of my first situation, and I was contented in it, being satisfied that it was an excellent means to an end which I had decided should be very fine indeed. I have never yet been able to make up my mind whether I am like or unlike to the majority of mankind in this: with me every phase of life, every occupation, every effort, almost every act and thought have been regarded, not upon their own merits or in relation to themselves, but as means to ends. The ends, it always appeared, would prove eminently desirable; they would give me my reward. The ends, once they were attained, would certainly bring me peace, happiness, fame, health, enjoyment, leisure, monetary gain, or whatever it was they were designed to bring. I am still uncertain whether or not the bulk of my fellow-men are similarly constituted; but I am tolerably certain that one misses a great deal in life as the result of having this kind of a mind. To a great extent, for example, one misses whatever may be desirable in the one moment of time of which we are all sure--the present. One is not spared the worries and anxieties of the present, because they seem to have their definite bearing upon the end in view. But the good, the sound sweetness of the present, when it chances to be there, so far from cherishing and savouring every fraction of it, we spare it no more than a hurried smile in passing, as a trifling incident of our progress toward the grand end which (just then) we have in view. And how often time proves the end a thing which never actually draws one breath of life; a mere embryo, a phantom, vaporous product of our own imagination! So that for one, two, or fifty years, as the case may be, we have derived no benefit from a number of tangible good things, by reason of our strenuous pursuit of a shadow.