ed to threaten me. I knew
my mother's philosophy of pleasure was different from mine, and,
reaching an early maturity, I concealed from her the experiments I made
in tasting daintily and rather proudly of life's pleasures. Before my
boyhood had gone, my natural cleverness and my selection of friends had
introduced me to many follies, each of which I regarded as a taste of
life which in no way meant a weakness. Weakness I was sure was not the
legacy of character which I possessed, and I failed to notice that I no
longer sipped of the various poisons which the world may offer, but
feverishly drank long drafts.

The awakening came in extraordinary form. I had not had my eighteenth
birthday when, upon a beautiful moonlit night in spring, a man and a
woman, more sober and much older than I, drove me out to my gate, begged
me to say less of the nobility of the horse which they had whipped into
a froth of perspiration, and left me to make my way alone along the long
path of huge flagstones to the house.

A light burned in the hall. I stood there looking for a long time in the
mirror of the old mahogany hatrack, with a growing conviction that my
reflected image looked extraordinarily like some one I had seen before.
I finally recognized myself as being an exact counterpart of my
great-great-grandfather's portrait. This did not shock me, though the
idea was a new one. I remember I laughed and brushed some white powder
from my sleeve. The powder did not come off readily; it was with some
thought of finding a brush that I gave my serious attention to the
handles of one of the little drawers. My awkward movement resulted in
pulling it completely out. Chance brought to light at that moment an
object long hidden behind the drawer itself. The thing fell to the
floor; I stooped dizzily to pick it up. It was an old glove!

It was an old glove, musty with age and yet still filled with the
individuality of the man who had worn it and still creased in the
distinctive lines of his hand. As I held it, I imagined that it was
still warm from the contact of living flesh, that it still carried faint
whiffs of its owner's personality as if he had a moment before drawn it
from his fingers. What maudlin folly seized me, I cannot say. I remember
that I exclaimed to myself affectionately, as one might who, like
Narcissus, worshiped his own image in a pool. I pressed the glove to my
face, delighting in its imagined likeness to myself. I gave it, in