the more we practice economy. For towards the close of
life, every day we live gives us the same kind of sensation as the
criminal experiences at every step on his way to be tried.

From the standpoint of youth, life seems to stretch away into an
endless future; from the standpoint of old age, to go back but a
little way into the past; so that, at the beginning, life presents us
with a picture in which the objects appear a great way off, as though
we had reversed our telescope; while in the end everything seems so
close. To see how short life is, a man must have grown old, that is to
say, he must have lived long.

On the other hand, as the years increase, things look smaller, one and
all; and Life, which had so firm and stable a base in the days of our
youth, now seems nothing but a rapid flight of moments, every one of
them illusory: we have come to see that the whole world is vanity!

Time itself seems to go at a much slower pace when we are young; so
that not only is the first quarter of life the happiest, it is also
the longest of all; it leaves more memories behind it. If a man were
put to it, he could tell you more out of the first quarter of his life
than out of two of the remaining periods. Nay, in the spring of
life, as in the spring of the year, the days reach a length that is
positively tiresome; but in the autumn, whether of the year or of
life, though they are short, they are more genial and uniform.

But why is it that to an old man his past life appears so short? For
this reason: his memory is short; and so he fancies that his life has
been short too. He no longer remembers the insignificant parts of it,
and much that was unpleasant is now forgotten; how little, then,
there is left! For, in general, a man's memory is as imperfect as his
intellect; and he must make a practice of reflecting upon the lessons
he has learned and the events he has experienced, if he does not want
them both to sink gradually into the gulf of oblivion. Now, we are
unaccustomed to reflect upon matters of no importance, or, as a rule,
upon things that we have found disagreeable, and yet that is necessary
if the memory of them is to be preserved. But the class of things that
may be called insignificant is continually receiving fresh additions:
much that wears an air of importance at first, gradually becomes of no
consequence at all from the fact of its frequent repetition; so that
in the end we actually lose count of the number