leaves and the tiger skins and the ivory bodies,
the clash of the cymbals and the dithyramb shrilling up to the stars!
"If I forget thee, O golden Aphrodite!" He is no hypocrite, no weary
"king ecclesiast," shaking his head over the orgies of sap and song in
which he can no longer share. He frankly acknowledges that then came in
the sweet o' the year, and he is still as young as the youngest by
virtue of having drunk deep of the only elixir, the Dionysiac cup of
life.

At the same time, while he may not ungratefully rejoice with Sophocles
at being "set free from service to a band of madmen," that ripening of
his nature which comes most fruitfully of a generous exercise of
its powers will have instinctively taught him that secret of the
transmutation of the passions which is one of the most precious rewards
of experience. It is quite possible for a lifelong passion for fair
women to become insensibly and unregretfully transmuted into a passion
for first editions, and you may become quite sincerely content that a
younger fellow catch the flying maiden, if only you can catch yon
flitting butterfly for your collection. And, strangest of all, your
grand passion for your own remarkable self may suffer a miraculous
transformation into a warm appreciation for other people. It is true
that you may smile a little sadly to find them even more interesting
than yourself. But such passing sadness has the relish of salvation in
it. Self is a weary throne, and the abdication of the ego is to be free
of one of the burdens rather than the pleasures of existence.

But, to conclude, it is all too possible that you who read this may have
no such assets of a wilful well spent life to draw on as he whom I have
pictured. It may be that you have starved your emotions and fled your
opportunities, or you may simply have had bad luck. The golden moments
seldom came your way. The wilderness of life has seldom blossomed with a
rose. "The breast of the nymph in the brake" and "the chimes at
midnight" were not for you. And there is a menacing murmur of autumn in
the air. The days are shortening, and the twilight comes early, with a
chilly breath. The crickets have stopped singing, and the garden is sad
with elegiac blooms. The chrysanthemum is growing on the grave of the
rose. Perhaps already it is too late--too late for life and joy. You
must take to first editions and entomology and other people's interests
in good earnest. But no! Suddenly on the