I shall accept involution, petrification of the sutures and limitation with good grace. I have never rebelled against logic, nor against nature, against the lightning or the thunder storm. No sooner does one gain the crest of the hill of life than at once he begins to descend rapidly. We know a great deal the moment that we realize that nobody knows anything. I am a little melancholy now and a little rheumatic; it is time to take salicylates and to go out and work in the garden--a time for meditation and for long stories, for watching the flames as they flare upward under the chimney piece upon the hearth. I commend myself to the event. It is dark outside, but the door of my house stands open. Whoever will, be he life or be he death, let him come in. PALINODE AND FRESH OUTBURST OF IRE A few days ago I left the house with the manuscript of this book, to which I have given the name of _Youth and Egolatry_, on my way to the post office. It was a romantic September morning, swathed in thick, white mist. A blue haze of thin smoke rose upward from the shadowy houses of the neighbouring settlement, vanishing in the mist. Meanwhile, the birds were singing, and a rivulet close by murmured in the stillness. Under the influence of the homely, placid country air, I felt my spirit soften and grow more humble, and I began to think that the manuscript which I carried in my hand was nothing more than a farrago of foolishness and vulgarity. The voice of prudence, which was also that of cowardice, cautioned me: "What is the good of publishing this? Will it bring you reputation?" "Certainly not." "Have you anything to gain by it?" "Probably not either." "Then, why irritate and offend this one and that by saying things which, after all, are nobody's business?" To the voice of prudence, however, my habitual self replied: "But what you have written is sincere, is it not? What do you care, then, what they think about it?" But the voice of prudence continued: "How quiet everything is about you, how peaceful! This is life, after all, and the rest is madness, vanity and vain endeavour." There was a moment when I was upon the point of tossing my manuscript into the air, and I believe I should have done so, could I have been sure that it would have dematerialized itself immediately like smoke; or I would have thrown it into the river, if I had felt certain that the current would have swept it out to sea. * * * * * This afternoon I went to San Sebastian to buy paper and salicylate of soda, which is less agreeable. A number of public guards were riding together in the car on the way over, along the frontier. They were discussing bull fighters, El Gallo and Belmonte, and also the disorders of the past few days. "Too bad that Maura and La Cierva are not in power," said one of them, who was from Murcia, smiling and exhibiting his decayed teeth. "They would have made short work of this."